Frank Lampard angered by ‘clear red card’ not given in Coventry City’s defeat at Ipswich Town

Frank Lampard angered by ‘clear red card’ not given in Coventry City’s defeat at Ipswich Town

Frank Lampard believes Ipswich Town goalscorer George Hirst should have been dismissed during Coventry City’s 3-0 defeat at Portman Road.

Hirst netted the second goal after Sindre Walle Egeli had broken the deadlock for the hosts, with substitute Ivan Azon adding a late third to complete the scoring.

However, with the match still scoreless, Hirst appeared fortunate to avoid a second yellow card. The striker, already on a booking, was flagged offside before firing wide after the referee had blown the whistle.

Despite this, referee Paul Tierney chose not to caution Hirst again, even though Coventry’s Josh Eccles had been booked earlier in the match for an identical offence.

The decision left Lampard visibly frustrated on the touchline, insisting the Ipswich forward should have been sent off.

“There’s no explanation for it. It’s simply wrong,” Lampard said. “Josh does it and gets booked — and I understand that from a player’s point of view.

“Hirst runs through, the flag goes up, the whistle goes, he stops and then goes again and does exactly the same thing. That should have been a second yellow and a red card. Instead, he stays on and scores their second.

“They had 11 men when, in my opinion, they should have had 10 for the rest of the game, and that went against us.

“There can’t be any heads dropping. I know this group doesn’t quite have the same feeling it did last Christmas, but we have to build that again.”

Despite the defeat, Coventry remain top of the Championship table, though their lead has been cut to seven points after only their second league loss of the season.

Lampard felt the final scoreline did not reflect his side’s performance and praised their first-half display.

“The result is the reality, but we all saw how that first half played out,” he added. “You could feel it in the stadium — we were winning our battles, we had control, real personality, strong organisation without the ball and an excellent work rate. We limited them well.

“They scored from a scrappy situation but the players kept going. I hate losing, especially by three goals, but I’m proud of how we approached the game against a strong squad.

“The circumstances hurt us, but our reaction now is what really matters.”

Ipswich opened the scoring two minutes before half-time when Walle Egeli curled a superb strike into the bottom-right corner from the edge of the box.

They doubled their lead just after the hour when Hirst latched onto Marcelino Núñez’s through ball and calmly finished past Carl Rushworth. Deep into stoppage time, Azon capitalised on Coventry’s high defensive line to curl home Ipswich’s third from inside the area.

Coventry return to action on Tuesday, December 9, when they travel to face Preston North End at Deepdale, with kick-off scheduled for 7:45pm.