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Former Gillingham defender Luke O’Neill was lucky to escape a red card on Saturday, says assistant boss Paul Raynor.
He was expecting referee John Busby to pull out a second yellow for the AFC Wimbledon defender after a cynical challenge on Regan Charles-Cook, fouling the player off the ball with a tug of the shirt.
The 83rd-minute incident led to a free-kick for the Gills but Wimbledon’s right-back – a popular player during his time at Priestfield – escaped any further punishment. He had been booked moments earlier for time wasting.
Raynor pulled no punches, saying: “It should have been a red card, to be perfectly honest. If he hadn’t had that yellow just a couple of minutes earlier there would have been no thought about it. I think that is the consensus of everyone watching.
“Everyone I spoke to was gobsmacked that Luke (didn’t get sent off).
"Nobody wants to see a player sent off, but it seemed quite obvious that that was going to happen, and there was a second yellow coming.
“I think the fact that he had booked him two minutes earlier, he was aware it was the same player and probably didn’t want to show the red card. That’s his decision but it was a strange one.”
Raynor certainly wasn’t blaming the officials for Gills’ defeat, admitting his team’s own shortcomings in a 2-1 loss.
But he was also left disappointed by the actions of Wimbledon’s Mads Bech Sorensen after going to ground easily when being challenged by Gills striker John Akinde.
When asked about the two times Sorensen went down, Gills’ No.2 said: “They came with a game plan. John is physical, he is a handful and it was a case of ‘if he catches you, or looks like there is any chance of him catching you, then stay down’.
“It was disappointing. Maybe he caught him fractionally for the first one but there didn’t look to be any contact for the second, it looked as though they were trying to get him sent off.
“There is no need for that from a professional player. The referee doesn’t even have a word with him to say ‘come on, don’t do that,’ because it is naughty, really.”
