Carlisle United boss on 'amateurish' red card at Wycombe

The goalkeeper was sent off after failing to notice home striker Sam Vokes creeping up behind him at Adams Park.

Andresson’s resulting challenge on Vokes outside the box saw him handle the ball, leading to a straight red card and leaving the Blues to play two thirds of the game with ten men.

The Chairboys went on to score in either half and manager Simpson was fuming with the farcical moment - claiming it would have been avoided by players at Sunday morning or schoolboy level.

“It’s an absolute amateurish mistake to make from Jokull and he has to deal with it now,” said Simpson.

“We talk about having a picture, having a vision of what’s going on around you, and we talk about talking and helping each other out.

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“You could blame a lot of things, but the referee has made the right decision and had to send him off for it.

“It’s a lack of concentration, a lack of awareness. It’s hard to get my head around how that can happen.

“Looking back at it, he’s had no help from anybody else. We’ve had every single one of our players not facing him, they’ve all got their back to him.

Andresson saw red in the 29th minute at Adams Park (Image: Barbara Abbott)

“I’m not trying to take anything away from the mistake Jokull made, but I just think if we help each other a little bit it maybe wouldn’t have happened.

“But really, as a goalkeeper, you have to have an awareness of what’s around you. That shouldn’t be happening, it’s as simple as that."

"We need to make sure we learn from what’s happened, [although] I don’t expect that situation for the red card to be something we have to learn from," added Simpson.

"I would expect you to learn from that when you’re a schoolboy. 

"If we go to watch a Sunday morning game tomorrow we probably wouldn’t expect that to happen. It’s a cruel way to learn but we have to deal with it."

Andresson’s dismissal saw Tomas Holy brought off the bench at Luke Plange’s expense, but a penalty conceded by Paul Huntington saw Luke Leahy fire Wycombe ahead.

Carlisle could have levelled through Sean Maguire and Sam Lavelle after the break, while Fin Back also hit the post in the first half, but Vokes’ 74th-minute effort clinched the points for Wycombe.

The Blues and many of their fans were angry at the awarding of the penalty but Simpson did not blame referee Scott Tallis.

He said: “We weren’t right in the first half. We didn’t work hard enough to keep the ball, we didn’t work hard enough to keep attacking players out of the box.

“If you allow [Garath] McCleary, with his ability, and his legs, to back you into the box, he’s going to cause you problems, and that’s what he did – he did it to Sam, to Hunts for the penalty, and we talked about stopping it at source, about getting tight and not allowing him to get in the box.

“We just haven’t done it well enough as a team. We get punished. The referee’s right with both his decisions. I think Hunts got the ball but went through the back of the player and I suppose by the letter of the law he has to give the penalty.

Simpson felt Carlisle started the game poorly and were on the back foot against Wycombe (Image: Barbara Abbott)

“It’s not just those two incidents that changed this game – we went about it the wrong way in the first half, we invited those mistakes by not doing things properly.”

Carlisle improved after the break and the ten men came close to a fightback.

But their efforts were to no avail.

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“You come away from home and it isn’t going to be nice, you have to roll your sleeves up, dig in and earn the right,” added manager Simpson.

“I think we’ve given Wycombe a leg-up to get themselves ahead and to go and win the game. When you’re down to ten men for that period it’s always difficult.

“The players showed a tremendous attitude in the second half to do it, but we have to do it from the first whistle.

“We probably should have got ourselves back into it with the opportunities we created. I complained about the set play delivery at the last game but I thought Owen Moxon’s delivery for the corner for Lavelle’s chance was outstanding.

“I’m expecting it to nestle in the net but it went wide, and we had a really good bit of play to get Sean Maguire in down the right side of the box, and I thought he should have got his shot off earlier.

“I felt there was an opportunity for Jordan Gibson where again we had a really good bit of play, and he may have got a penalty if he’d gone down, but we’re too honest in those situations.

“I’m not saying that we should cheat, but if he’d gone down it was a foul. He tries to avoid the defender and we lose the opportunity to shoot.

“With the way the referee was with some of the decisions I think that if he’d gone it could easily have been given.

“The second goal was a killer, it was such a sucker punch. It came at a time when I thought we had some really good momentum about us.

“I’m really pleased with the way they went about it in the second half but we’ve absolutely shot ourselves in the foot with what we did in the first half.”

Andresson’s suspension means Holy will now start against Peterborough United on Tuesday night, giving the Czech the chance to reclaim his first-team place for the duration.

Holy received a warm reception from Blues fans when he came off the bench at Adams Park.

“I thought he came on, kicked well, showed good handling and I didn’t think he could do a lot about the second goal, so it’s up to him to make sure he keeps hold of the shirt now he’s in,” said Simpson.