Town boss Mick McCarthy admitted that “anything that could go wrong, went wrong” as his Blues side was beaten 3-1 by Brentford at Portman Road.
Luke Hyam was red-carded just before half-time after a clash with Bees’ midfielder Ryan Woods, having been booked in the early stages for a tackle on Alan Judge, which led to the Republic of Ireland international being stretchered off with what’s thought to be a broken leg.
Brentford manager Dean Smith felt the challenge was "a bit of a naughty tackle”, a view with which McCarthy didn’t concur.
"I’m disappointed that he said that,” the Town boss said. "I don’t think it is, I think he’s won the ball. I’ve just gone and complained at the referee as to why it was a booking if you win the ball.
"I don’t think it was naughty at all. Surprises me that, and disappoints me. But we all have opinions on it.
"I feel really sorry for Judgey, I know him and I had him in here and was going to sign him [in 2013] and he signed for more money at Blackburn.
"He’s a great kid and a lovely player, so I feel really sorry for him. The injury actually affected us more than it affected them.
"It affected Luke Hyam, his game is about getting about, winning tackles, having a presence like that and he couldn’t do it then.
"And ultimately, it’s cost him because I’ve no doubt he was targeted with the tackle that he got.
"But then he shouldn’t have reacted the way he did, he can’t do anything about that, it is a second booking and he is going to get sent off.
"He was going to come off at half-time. I would have hoped he could get to half-time, knowing he’d been booked, you can’t react in any way like that and you’ve got to be careful.
"And he had been careful by not going into tackles like that, so I thought he’d got his head around that and I’d make the decision at half-time. In hindsight I should have taken him off but that’s 20/20 vision that.
"He’s apologised, he’s sicker than anybody else because he’ll feel that he’s contributed more than anybody else in a way that it’s cost us the game.
"It hasn’t cost us the game, I think the first decision of the referee’s had a big part in costing us the game.”
Regarding the challenge from Konstantin Kerschbaumer on Cole Skuse in the lead-up to Brentford’s first goal, McCarthy was in no doubt it should have been given as a foul and that referee Phil Gibbs was close to giving a freekick.
"Everybody and their f******g grandmother thought it was a foul. And I’ve just been to see the referee and he goes to put the whistle in his mouth to blow. He said, ‘No, I didn’t put it to my mouth’. He still did, I just watched it.
"The linesman has said that his foot was planted and he slipped. It was a foul, he hasn’t given it. Anything that could go wrong has gone wrong.”
He added: "We gave it a go in the second half. I can only take something out of the sense of pride the players had the way they went about it in the second half. That was good with 10 men against a good team.
"I’m still disappointed with the manner of the goals, the second Brentford goal certainly. The third goal was even worse because we had the ball.
"The lads showed a lot of pride in the shirt and not letting their heads go down, they kept going until the very end, so that’s something to take out of the game. We had a few chances, but we didn’t take them unfortunately.”
McCarthy admitted it was a difficult decision to drop Tommy Smith as he looked to add a greater attacking threat from his full-backs.
"It was a tough decision for me to make,” he continued. "[It wasn’t a reflection on Tommy’s performances] whatsoever, and having had two clean sheets, it’s a difficult one to do, but we were playing at home and I wanted us, if we could, be a bit better with the ball.
"I thought Kevin Foley started great with the ball, he’s a very good footballer and I thought Jonas was excellent, certainly in the second half.
"He was really an example to anybody to how you keep going, he got better and better. It was with a view to having two more attacking footballer-based full-backs.”
Regarding Town’s prospects of getting their play-offs push back on track if they beat Sheffield Wednesday at Hillsborough next week, he said: "Aunty and bollocks come to mind.”
Asked about reports that a phone call from Ainsley Maitland-Niles’s mother had led to the on-loan Arsenal winger’s omission from recent squads, before returning to the XI today, he said: "What we do is private, whatever goes on, I wouldn’t comment on, to be honest with you.”
McCarthy confirmed that Teddy Bishop was fine, despite having been left out of the 18.
Brentford boss Dean Smith said he isn’t yet sure of the extent of Judge’s injury: "I’ve not heard the finality of it at the moment.
"He’s gone to hospital so we’re just waiting to hear. I’m hoping it’s not as bad as I fear because I heard something and I’m hoping it was the shin pad rather than the crack of bone.
"I thought it was a bit of a naughty tackle, personally, and I thought it deserved a red card.”
He added: "I just thought that the ball was there to be won, but I think he knew he was going to go in and do Alan as well at the same time. He was very reckless in my opinion.
"But I also felt there were a few talking points. I thought the tackle on Ryan Woods by Luke Varney later on was naughty as well and was deserving of a red card.
"There were a few talking points because Kersch maybe fouled their lad in the build-up to the first goal.”
Reflecting on his side’s performance, he said: "I’m really pleased. We’ve had a lot of injuries as well. Nico Yennaris pulled out last night with illness, he’d scored two goals in the last two games and had been instrumental in centre midfield.
"We’ve got Josh McEachran out with a fractured metatarsal and John Swift out, who got injured on U21 duty, so we’ve been light on the ground.
"I’m very proud of the players to come through the games that we’ve had in the last week and to score three goals in each of them and get three wins. Excellent.
"At 11 v 11 I thought we looked the likeliest to score. I knew coming here I knew in the first 15 minutes it would be very much a second ball game and we’d have to go and compete.
"The incident that happened with Alan, I thought the lads reacted really well, they were very disciplined, they never got involved with anything really, never went jumping into tackles and kept their discipline very well.
"We scored a good first goal, Kersch made a good run and pulled it back for Sam Saunders and it was a good finish.
"And then their lad gets himself sent off and I thought in the second half we created a number of opportunities. Towards the end I thought we had some tired legs and gave them some opportunities.”