Lockyer felt red card for team-mate Pearson was harsh

Luton defender Tom Lockyer felt team-mate Matty Pearson was unfortunate to see red against Swansea City yesterday.

The centre half, who had already been booked on the hour for fouling Andre Ayew, was then shown a second yellow by referee Leigh Doughty just 10 minutes later with Town trailing 1-0.

It came in slightly bizarre circumstances, the defender attempting an overhead kick inside the Swans penalty area, connecting with the head of home defender Marc Guehi in the process, belatedly given his marching orders by the official.

Speaking after the 2-0 defeat, Lockyer said: “The red, it’s one of them things, I think they’ve got the better of the ref.

“Yes his foot’s high, but now do we have to take overhead kicks out of the game?

“They've got around the ref, because they knew we were all over them and anything to help them, I don't blame them I'd probably be doing the same if I was them.

“Instantly I look at it and I've had one of them.

"I've had my nose broken and bent in three places from an overhead kick and the ref said play on, so where do you draw the line?

"I don't know, are you going to take overhead kicks out of football now?

“It's not for me to say, the referees made his decision, I do think he was influenced by them a little bit, but we have to take our medicine and move on.”

Boss Nathan Jones didn’t want to be drawn on the incident too much, which saw Pearson the first Luton player to be sent off since Andrew Shinnie saw red at Charlton in the 3-1 League One defeat on April 13, 2019 saying: “It's a high foot, so they go up, but let's not talk about the referee as the referee, his performance was nowhere near the level of my team's performance today, so let's leave it at that.

"We've been punished outside the box with two shots, but everything else we were excellent we really, really were, and that's the frustrating thing as we deserved more from the game.”

Although the Swansea players immediately surrounded the official, with Doughty then reaching for his top pocket, the manager didn’t have any issues with such behaviour.

He added: “That’s professional, we’d have done it, they'd have done it and they do.

"What referees have to do is think clearly then and if it is a red card it’s a red card, but that's what happens, that’s professional and teams do that, so no qualms about that whatsoever."