Red card disappoints Davies

Davies was booked twice for fouls on wily frontmen Ayegbeni Yakubu and Mark Viduka to receive his marching orders at the Riverside.

The 21-year-old will now miss tomorrow's crunch Hawthorns clash with Cardiff through suspension, but reckons the officials could have done more to help him out.

Davies was shown his first yellow on the stroke of half-time when he was adjudged to have brought down Yakubu for a penalty, which the Nigerian converted.And the defender said: "Yakubu rolled me, which I wasn't happy about, but I feel for a guy who is 14 or 15 stone and up against me - he went down a bit easily.

"It's not his fault he got the penalty, but I felt the referee could have made a better decision.

"Obviously he mixed up his decision and maybe that showed it was a bad decision."

On the challenge with Viduka in the dying seconds which resulted in him being dismissed Davies added: "I'm 13 stone so why am I going to wrestle with Mark Viduka?

"I'm faster than him and I know if I get round him I know I can cover.

"He got me in an arm lock and you can clearly see on television my arms were up, so it should be obvious for the referee to see.

"Paul McShane was coming round on the cover, so there was no reason for me to bring him down and I didn't.

"It was two soft bookings. I've only been booked three times all season and yet I got booked twice on Saturday. That sums it up and I wasn't happy with the decisions.

"I'm not taking anything away from the strikers. I was disappointed to get rolled and I was disappointed Viduka got across me.

"But the ref needs to know his players. Everyone knows Viduka does that.

"I knew he was going to try that which was why I put my arms up so I couldn't wrestle him.

"I don't know what else I could do and I can't appeal it because it was two yellows.

"It's a shame I've got a red card on my record now."