Tuesday 8 September 2015 09:56, UK
Northern Ireland manager Michael O'Neill was critical of the referee for sending off Chris Baird in his side's 1-1 draw with Hungary on Monday night.
Derby County midfielder Baird was shown two yellow cards for fouls that took place within a matter of seconds of each other in the European Qualifier at Windsor Park.
However, as O'Neill pointed out, Baird would not have made the second tackle in the 81st minute had he known referee Cuneyt Cakir was going to book him for his first infringement.
"I have never seen a player booked twice for the one incident, which is new to me," said O'Neill. "I said to the referee I do not agree with it.
"Chris would not have made the second tackle if he knew he was booked for the first tackle. So it is a bizarre situation to see that and I have never seen that happen before."
And Baird, along with both goalscorer Kyle Lafferty and Conor McLaughlin, will all now be suspended for Northern Ireland's next Euro 2016 qualifier at home to Greece in October.
"I thought Kyle's was a little bit harsh, as I think it was his first challenge - the ball was going away from him, he does not need to make the challenge, so in that sense it was a bit needless, but I thought it was a bit harsh," he added.
"And Conor we will just have to look, we have options for players who can come in, [Paddy] McNair can play there, Aaron Hughes can play there, so we just have to deal with it. We look at our team and we have a little bit more depth to our squad now."
However, O'Neill had nothing but praise for his players, who recovered from the setback of falling behind following a mistake by goalkeeper Michael McGovern with 15 minutes to go, to draw level in stoppage time, despite having to play the final 10 minutes with 10 men.
"It was nerve racking to say the least," said O'Neill. "The first half we had total control of the game, totally dominated the game. Our final ball could have been better and we maybe did not create as many chances given the dominance we had.
"Second half, I felt they came into it a little bit, and then obviously we have the mistake for the goal and then the decision to send Chris off. But what we saw after that was true grit and spirit and we found a way to take something out of the game, so it is a massive point for us.
"We were a man down and we had to be careful, because we could not chase the game too much. At 1-0, our head to head with Hungary was still better, due to the fact we got two away goals in Budapest, so it was important we did not lose the game 2-0.
"So we had to get the shape of the team right... we obviously went to 3-4-2, we needed to keep two people up the pitch, which we did, and we just kept going really. And we just dug in, we needed to get opportunities around the box, set pieces, corners, and it eventually paid off.
"Kyle [Lafferty] was out on his feet to be fair, we were looking at maybe taking him off at 0-0, but we lose the goal and we obviously have to keep him on and got Josh [Magennis] up alongside him - and we just kept going.
"Second half it was not vintage, but it was pure theatre at least. The result between Romania and Greece is favourable to us as well, so we still have our four-point gap over Hungary, who still have to go to Greece, which will not be an easy game, and we have Greece here as well. So we look forward to the next game."
