Referee in to speak to Mansfield Town over high bookings count

Boss Adam Murray said he felt many of them were down to over-enthusiasm rather being nasty, but welcomed the help to educate his players not to take silly yellow cards.

“It’s a strange one,” he said. “We have picked up a lot of yellow cards in the first three games.

“But you look at the actual yellow cards, they are not malicious tackles. It’s not as if we are bullies. We are the opposite and I think we have got a few soft touches in there.

“I am doing reports for the referees after the games this season, as I think if they good they are good and I expect the same back.

“I apologised to the referee after the game on Saturday. I didn’t think at the time he had got the penalty right but, watching it back, he had so I went to see him.

“You look at the referee on Tuesday, it was his first Football League game and speaking to the assessors at time he was a little bit rash.

“On Saturday it was only his second Football League game I think and it showed.

“With a little bit more experience with them guys, they are not going to be as rash with just giving out bookings.

“Don’t get me wrong we are at fault for some of the things.

“We have are a referee coming in from the Referee’s Association on Wednesday to have a chat with the lads as we are so young and energetic and we want to put this kind of fire onto everybody, we are reacting at times, myself included, at 100 miles an hour and I think we can calm that down a little bit.

“It’s not as if there are two-footed challenges everywhere. What Oxford did on Saturday, and fair play it’s part of the game, is that they managed the ref well on Saturday.

“I think some of the fouls given, they made it a little bit worse than they were. But this is the game and we have got to be a bit cleverer about how we go about things.

“But are not overly concerned. It’s something we are talking to the lads about. If we were having people running in two-footing people then it would be out of control.

“But some of the tackles are just a lack of timing. It’s an eagerness to go and win the ball and nothing malicious. So it just needs a bit of thought going into it.”