Colchester United head coach John McGreal felt the red card shown to his skipper Tom Lapslie in their 0-0 draw with Coventry City this afternoon was "extremely harsh".

The U's were forced to play the final 14 minutes plus stoppage-time at the Ricoh Arena with only ten men, after Lapslie picked up two cautions in barely two minutes in the second half of the League Two clash to receive the first red card of his professional career.

After being booked for a foul, Lapslie was shown a second yellow card by referee Michael Salisbury for handling the ball deep in the Colchester half - and McGreal felt the midfielder was hard done by.

McGreal said: "I think it was extremely harsh.

"From what the players are saying, the linesman is saying it's not a yellow and it's a foul or whatever.

"But from then, the referee has drawn a yellow card from somewhere and I want to ask the referee the question.

"Tom handled the ball in anticipation of a free-kick, as he felt that he'd been fouled.

"It's not as if the lad is clean through and we're pulling the ball back - I think there's about half a yard left on the touchline so I can't see how it's a yellow card anyway because the lad's got nowhere to go."

Colchester continued their impressive away form at Coventry, making it four games unbeaten on the road.

It was a game with few chances but the U's defended extremely well in what was a highly organised away performance.

McGreal added: "It's a great point for us at the end, after what happened with 15 minutes to go when we lost a man.

"We felt that we had broken up what Coventry had thrown at us and we were getting in and around their attacking third a lot more than we were in the first 70 minutes.

"We sensed at that stage that we could be approaching what we did on Tuesday night (scoring twice at Newport County) but then we had a man sent off.

"We knew it was going to be tough but we managed it really well, especially for such a young team."