Town boss Mick McCarthy felt Sol Bamba’s second-half red card affected his side more than Cardiff after the Blues’ 1-1 home draw with the Bluebirds.
The visitors went ahead through Aron Gunnarsson in the 38th minute after Bartosz Bialkowski dropped a Peter Whittingham corner, before Luke Varney equalised for the Blues on 52.
"The game was going nowhere and arguably our most consistent and best player drops a corner,” McCarthy reflected.
"And he has been brilliant so I’ll have no recriminations with him at all because he made some good saves today as well.
"Fair play to the lads, they had a good response to that in the second half and got back in it and the sending off probably affected us more than it affected them, strangely enough.
"They sat in, made it difficult to play around them and through them. We were doing alright against 11 men, so I think it had a worse effect on us.”
Why does that happen sometimes? "I don’t know, maybe the thought of not winning against 10 men, the thought of maybe even losing against 10 men gets in players’ heads.
"And they’re no mugs, they put Anthony Pilkington and Craig Noone on as two subs and they aren’t too bad either. By no stretch of the imagination are they mugs.”
McCarthy was pleased with Varney, who scored for the second home game in a row: "He’s great, Reg. He’s an infectious character, he’s done great for me. And he just causes problems because he competes constantly, it was great to see him get his goal.”
Regarding the red card, McCarthy said: "I’ve seen a lot of players lose it, I’ve lost it myself, but never with the fourth official.
"He was trying to get at Dougie. Pits was going on and Didz was trying to stop him and he said, ‘Let him go’ because he could see what was coming. He couldn’t get at Dougie so he came and had a go at the fourth official.
Who's next?! 😡 Sol Bamba takes on the officials and his own manager as he loses his head and earns himself a red card. pic.twitter.com/nd8oY1YAeo
— Football On 5 (@FootballOn5) December 10, 2016
"It probably was a foul but you can’t condone that whatever’s happened. He thoroughly deserved to be sent off, the way he approached the fourth official.
"It was a reaction to Dougie’s challenge because he went to go and get Dougie. He got stopped from doing that.
"You just can’t do it, you can’t behave like that. You’ve seen when anybody runs and throws their arms up they get booked.
"A lot had gone off. It took a long time before he went across. As I said, it was a foul on him, but the game went on, he gave them an advantage. It’s a red card.”
The Town boss was disappointed that his side were unable to create many chances against the 10 men.
"Of course I am,” he continued. "We got Bish on the ball once and he worked his magic, we got a freekick and we put the freekick over the bar. We’ve got to work the goalie, hit the wall, it might have skidded in. That deflates us.
"We got in behind them a number of times and didn’t put a decent cross in. I was banging on about that last week and I still am this week. And I will be.”
He added: "But as long as they keep getting in them and keep doing it, if they stop doing it that’s going to be a real problem. Keep doing it, keep getting on the overlap, keep getting crosses in and we’ll keep working on them.”
Having made the mistake that led to the goal, Bialkowski went some way towards redeeming himself with a late save from Craig Noone.
"Our game management was ridiculous there,” the Town boss reflected. "Whatever we do, if we’re one-all we just take the point, but we certainly don’t do what we did at the end by giving them a chance, giving them a freekick.
"Whittingham hit the wall, strangely enough, he got a corner. They had a chance from the corner, they had a chance from the other corner. They just kept sustained pressure on and Noone right at the very death could have nicked it. Thankfully, he didn’t.”