Southend boss Chris Powell: Yearwood deserved red card – but Charlton had lucky escape with two tackles

BY RICHARD CAWLEY

Chris Powell had no complaints with Dru Yearwood’s red card in today’s 1-1 draw at Charlton Athletic.

The Southend midfielder was dismissed by referee Simon Hooper after a late and high challenge on Jonny Williams.

But they still managed to leave The Valley with a point.

Stephen Humphrys’ deflected shot had put them ahead before they went down to 10 men. Ben Reeves’ second-half header saw that advantage cancelled out.

Powell said: “It’s a sending off. He did slip, no doubt, but it looks bad. He’s out of control – but if you slip you are out of control!

“It didn’t look great, so you have to take what the referee decides.

“But my only take would be that there were two poor tackles on Michael Kightly and Timothee Dieng that I thought were similar – but we were told because they were low they were not sendings off. You can break your leg, whether they are high or low.”

Asked about Humphrys’ good fortune, Powell replied: “You’ve got to shoot – I keep saying we don’t shoot enough. He’s a player who can shoot from distance. Okay, it has a slight deflection off Sarr but you take that. I only wish it led to three points.

“We’ve had a rollercoaster of the season so far.

“That performance today showed me that we had enough to pick up points at tough place. I know how tough this place can be. We started off very well, nudged ahead and the big turning point as the sending off.

“At 1-1 we knew Charlton were going to pressure us – but our keeper made two great saves and then we could’ve maybe nicked it near the end.

“It was a performance that the supporters should be very, very proud of. We let ourselves down last week but we got a lot of that back today. All power to my players and substitutes – everyone played a part.”