Simon Weaver fumes at Luke Armstrong red card as Harrogate lose at Tranmere

Angry Harrogate boss Simon Weaver hit out at the “unfathomable” decision to send off striker Luke Armstrong in his side’s 2-0 defeat at promotion-chasing Tranmere.

Armstrong saw red just before the half-hour mark after being shown two yellow cards inside three minutes on what Weaver branded “the strangest night of football” he had seen.

Harrogate were sent crashing to a third straight loss on a night of frustration for Weaver, who was particularly incensed by Armstrong’s dismissal by referee Darren Handley.

He said: “I don’t think anyone in the stadium, other than the referee, had a clue what was going on.

“Luke has been dragged by the throat and ended up getting a second yellow.

“I’ve seen both incidents on video already and it’s just unfathomable in my book.

“It’s been the strangest night of football I’ve ever seen.

“Decisions are clearly going against us and it’s frustrating because I thought our lads deserved to be the main talking point tonight.

“They performed with guile and with energy, they were excellent.

“Their full-backs got the ball out wide quite a lot, but we snuffed out that problem I thought.

“When we had the ball we looked a threat and we had good opportunities to score.

“I suppose you have to give Tranmere some credit for the way they produced some excellent last-ditch defending.

“We can all be proud of the lads tonight, despite the result.”

Rovers could not find a breakthrough before the break, although Elliott Nevitt and Josh Hawkes went close.

Everton loanee Lewis Warrington struck for Rovers just after the restart before then Kane Hemmings’ cool finish from the penalty spot wrapped up the points.

Rovers boss Micky Mellon admitted there was plenty of room for improvement, despite a second straight victory to keep their automatic promotion push on track.

“It can be really difficult against 10 sometimes,” said Mellon. “You have to be patient and sometimes wait for your opportunity.

“There’s loads of things we could get better on and we need to polish up on a few things, but, despite there being lots going on in the game, we got the job done.

“We put in a professional performance to get the win and a clean sheet is very important too.

“We did give the ball away a bit too cheaply at times when we probably needed that bit more composure and we do need to be tidier in possession.

“We’ll enjoy this evening, though, and then it’s about us trying to back it up with another result at the weekend.”

And Mellon saw the sending-off differently to his opposite number.

He added: “The lad was very naive really, going in like he did just a couple of minutes after getting a yellow card.

“In my opinion he gave the referee no alternative. He gave the ref a decision to make and he made it.”