Chris Lakey Adam Drury joined the condemnation of referee Andy D'Urso by insisting the Essex official had missed a "stonewall penalty". D'Urso waved away loud claims for a penalty on 71 minutes when Drury was barged over by Bradley Orr, robbing 10-man City of a golden opportunity to grab a valuable point from the game.

Chris Lakey

Adam Drury joined the condemnation of referee Andy D'Urso by insisting the Essex official had missed a "stonewall penalty".

D'Urso waved away loud claims for a penalty on 71 minutes when Drury was barged over by Bradley Orr, robbing 10-man City of a golden opportunity to grab a valuable point from the game.

"There were bits and pieces going on all game, but nothing seemed to come our way, and then obviously there's a stonewall penalty on me," he said. "Anywhere else on the pitch he gives a foul, no doubt about it. It's in the box and for some reason he doesngive it. I've watched it over and over and it's a penalty. Why he doesn't give it I don't know. We said things to him but I don't want to repeat what we said - but he had no comeback really."

D'Urso was involved in a controversial incident in the reverse fixture last season and was perhaps a surprise choice for Saturday.

"That's down to other people who make those decisions, but all you want at the end of the day is fairness and obviously I didn't think it was today," said Drury.

"You're back in the game, with 10 men maybe you hold on for a point or they go and chase the game and maybe we nick another one, you don't know how it's going to go - obviously we'll never know now."

Defeat leaves City in a precarious position, just above the drop zone.

"We're in a position where we need to be getting wins and obviously home games are the ones you want to win," said Drury. "After we went down to 10 men it was always going to be an uphill struggle, but I thought second half we came out and took the game to them.

"It was always going to open up and they were going to get chances and get space, but I thought second half we did a lot of pressing.

"We didn't really get going first half - what that's down to I don't know, but then obviously we have given ourselves a mountain to climb second half. But I thought the second-half performance was a lot better. But it doesn't really matter now how we play, it's about points. We want to play great football, like any team does, but at the minute it's about picking up points where we can and obviously we have to get back to picking up points as soon as we can."

Gary Doherty's dismissal for conceding the penalty which led to the visitors' first-half penalty winner, left City with it all to do.

"From where I was I couldn't really tell what happened because we're running back," Drury said.

"I don't know whether the ref or the linesman gave it, but I think it's one of those things where they will sit down and look at the video and see whether it's worth appealing against because things like that change games.

"It's frustrating because with the position we're in in the table, even a point when we're down to 10 men, we'd have taken."