ALOR SETAR: Kedah Darul Aman FC assistant head coach Victor Andrag believes the two red cards they received during their Super League match against PDRM FC last night cost them the match at the Darul Aman Stadium.
Kedah captain Manuel Ott was shown red by referee Azizan Saat Ariffin in the 59th minute after an incident with PDRM's Fadi Mahmoud. The latter appeared to be time wasting during a dead ball situation.
Kedah head coach Nafuzi Zain was later sent off in the 70th minute for dissent towards the fourth official.
The two red cards saw the match being played out in a tense atmosphere. PDRM's Bruno Suzuki scored in the 70th minute which allowed his team to run out 1-0 winners.
Victor, who stood in for Nafuzi in the post-match press conference, expressed his disappointment with what happened.
"A red card always has a big impact on the team and the effect is even bigger when it is the captain and the head coach (who are sent off)," said Victor.
"The players had trouble controlling their emotions after what happened on the pitch.
"Emotions are probably one of the reasons why we were not able to come back. We really wanted to score at our home stadium and lead in the match. This (emotions) caused us to be disorganised.
"I hope we will learn from this experience and improve for our upcoming matches."
Victor admitted PDRM played well and put Kedah under pressure from the start of the match.
He, however, did not want to comment about the standard of refereeing during the match.
"We did not play how we planned. I do not want to speak too much about the incident that happened, I just hope we can recover for our next matches," said Victor.
After the match ended, close to 1,000 Kedah fans gathered at the entrance of the stadium to show their displeasure with the refereeing during the match.
