Steve Lovell had no complaints about the second yellow card that led to Max Ehmer’s dismissal on Saturday with 20 minutes left.

The Gills boss had already taken Tom Eaves off because he feared the striker would pick up a second booking and be heading for an early bath.

But in the end it was defender Ehmer who had an early exit.

Reacting to the red card, Lovell said: “The first (booking), it was his first challenge and I thought it wasn’t a booking, but you can’t argue with it, the second was a bookable offence.

“He had already been booked and so he had to go, the same reason we brought Tom off. He had to come off because he was on a booking. One more challenge and he could have been sent off.

“I didn’t want to bring Tom off but we had to protect him.

“We don’t want to lose any players because we haven’t got that big a squad that we can let people get sent off and miss games.”

Ehmer now misses Gills’ next game, at Blackpool, but he would have been suspended anyway as his initial booking on Saturday had taken his tally for the season up to five.

His dismissal was Gills’ fourth of the campaign so far, following red cards for Lee Martin, Eaves and Conor Wilkinson.