IPSWICH midfielder Owen Garvan today insisted: “We're not a dirty team.”Ricardo Fuller's 78th minute sending off in Town's 2-2 Coca-Cola Championship draw at Crystal Palace on Saturday was the Blues' sixth dismissal of the season - extending an unwanted club record.
By Elvin King
IPSWICH midfielder Owen Garvan today insisted: “We're not a dirty team.”
Ricardo Fuller's 78th minute sending off in Town's 2-2 Coca-Cola Championship draw at Crystal Palace on Saturday was the Blues' sixth dismissal of the season - extending an unwanted club record.
Emerging 18-year-old Garvan is just as baffled as anyone at the number of early baths.
And he pleaded: “Don't knock us for our glut of red cards.
“We are not a nasty side, and there is no malice in our play. There was not one dangerous challenge in our six dismissals.
“We do not have the type of players who go into tackles two-footed or with their studs up.
“We have no one in the squad who sets out to cause damage.
“It was another needless red
card, and it is getting so frustrating. It is so hard to explain why we have suffered so much.
“Maybe referees are picking on us because we are too nice.
“I am not saying that we would have won with 11 men on the field for 90 minutes, but it would have boosted our chances.”
Fuller will now serve a ban for his two-fingered gesture and has probably played his last Town game before he returns to Southampton at the end of his eventful loan.
He kept the Town coach waiting at Selhurst Park while he spoke to referee Kevin Friend. “The referee seemed a good guy and I told him my side of the story,” said Fuller.
“Hopefully, his report will be favourable. I was happy to score against my old club and Palace fans were having a go at me.
“I gestured to them with two fingers, but the assistant referee said that he thought I had aimed it at him.
“The Palace defenders did not hold back on Alan Lee and me, yet I cannot remember a card being given to them.
“I was scratched, bruised and kicked on the tendon, which was potentially a career-ending
tackle.”
With other results going their way, Ipswich are now eight points off the play-off places, but hopes of promotion still look very slim indeed.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here