Justin Edinburgh was unable to defend his skipper Doug Loft after his red card proved costly on Saturday.

The Gills boss had no complaints on either of the yellow cards that led to Loft’s dismissal, labelling the second one stupid.

It made a difficult challenge for the Gills even harder, as they went down to a 3-0 defeat to Burton.

Reacting to Loft’s second yellow, after a tussle with Stuart Beavon, Edinburgh said: “It was a free-kick for us leading to the decision but Doug needs to do better than that and he knows it. There were two poor decisions that cost us a man in the first half at 0-0. That had a big impact on the game.

“It was a free-kick that wasn’t given but you play to the whistle. He’s committed a stupid foul and the referee had one decision to make. It was straightforward.”

Down to 10 men, the Gills battled on in the second half and could have levelled. Dominic Samuel hit the bar just after Damien McCory put the visitors ahead.

“Just before their first goal we were starting to get the ascendancy in the game,” said the manager.

“The players found that energy level and were starting to get some passages of play and continuous pressure on their back line.

“That (Samuel effort) may have gone in and then given us something to hold onto but it wasn’t to be.”

Edinburgh had no complaints about his team’s effort but did fault their quality at times, in windy conditions.

He said: “We were just a little bit loose in possession and our decision making in those conditions were poor. We invited unnecessary pressure. We gave Burton the bait and they took it.

“I didn’t feel we started the game with our normal tempo and just couldn’t quite get going but what we have to do is have better game management, better decision making in the right areas. I thought we over-played in the wrong areas.”