Glenn Roeder was left to share around the praise after City dug deep into their meagre resources to pull out an unlikely victory at the City Ground. David Marshall, Sammy Clingan, Lee Croft - they were all given a role call by the City manager.

Glenn Roeder was left to share around the praise after City dug deep into their meagre resources to pull out an unlikely victory at the City Ground.

David Marshall, Sammy Clingan, Lee Croft - they were all given a role call by the City manager.

But despite seeing a difficult task become even harder when defender Gary Doherty was sent off after just 20 minutes, Roeder made a special mention of one combatant - the Football League's youngest referee, 23-year-old Michael Oliver.

“I don't normally start talking about the referee,” said Roeder, currently awaiting an FA hearing into a charge of improper conduct after being sent to the stands by Neil Swarbrick at Derby last month.

“This ref we had last year when we lost 2-0 at Bramall Lane and he was fantastic, and I thought he had a fantastic game tonight.

“You don't often get a manager saying that when he's sent one of his players off, but I am an honest person and when I think someone deserves praise I'll say it.”

Roeder had no qualms with the red card, after Doherty scythed down Nathan Tyson right on the edge of the area.

“I haven't seen it, but my first impressions were I was disappointed that the striker had got between our two centre backs,” he said. “It was a very accurate pass that put him on his way a d heading in on goal and unfortunately Gary Doherty was adjudged to have brought him down.

“So he had little option. If those are the rules, those are the rules. Doc's not complaining about it and I'm certainly not going to whinge about it. If the guy's right say he's right. I am expecting when I do see it that he did make the right decision and was left with no option but to do that.”