City boss Glenn Roeder struggled to contain his anger last night over the penalty decision that condemned his side to defeat at Southampton. With the Canaries trailing 1-0 at St Mary's Stadium but still very much in the game, they suffered a killer blow when referee Richard Beeby awarded the Saints a penalty for a trip by Dejan Stefanovic on Adam Lallana.

City boss Glenn Roeder struggled to contain his anger last night over the penalty decision that condemned his side to defeat at Southampton.

With the Canaries trailing 1-0 at St Mary's Stadium but still very much in the game, they suffered a killer blow when referee Richard Beeby awarded the Saints a penalty for a trip by Dejan Stefanovic on Adam Lallana.

Beeby then showed Stefanovic the red card, for what looked like dissent, before David McGoldrick doubled his side's lead from the spot, with 63 minutes played.

Roeder, whose team slipped to 19th in the Championship table, fumed: "I'm hugely disappointed with the official. As you know, I have to be careful what I say. You should be able to speak your mind but you know you can't.

"I've viewed the penalty incident several times. One, in my opinion, it's not a foul. Secondly, it's not even in the box. It's just outside the box and the referee's got a great view of it."

City were today waiting for news of the length of Stefanovic's ban, likely to be two or three matches.

"Violent conduct is a three-match ban but we're just waiting to check to see what the ban's going to be. We could certainly do without it," said Roeder.

"Dejan is saying he doesn't know why he sent him off for a straight red. We'll wait for the referee's report. It just compounded the whole situation to have a penalty unfairly given against you and then an important player sent off.

"Too often the referees at the moment are having too big an influence on the result. Having said that, the chances we're missing are incredible."

Jordan Robertson, on loan from Sheffield United and making his debut, scored Southampton's first goal after 29 minutes.

"Goals change games. We could have been a couple of goals to the good before they scored their first, which was a wonderful strike, make no mistake about it," said Roeder.

"Sometimes you have to put your hands in the air and say you couldn't do a lot about it - although I felt we could with our defending. We allowed the lad to come inside far too easily, we didn't put him under enough pressure, we didn't force him down the outside away from goal.

"But once he'd gone inside, the strike was magnificent and at the moment to beat David Marshall you have to hit the ball well and he certainly did.

"We were well in the game, pressing for an equaliser and deserved to equalise and I think go on and win the game, and then we get a decision like that from an official. I'd love to tell you what I really feel but it's just not possible."

Despite the scoreline, City's display was a marked improvement on the weekend.

"The performance was miles better than it was at Barnsley on Saturday, hugely improved," said Roeder, who reeled off a list of near misses and squandered chances.

"I don't know how Antoine Sibierski's header stayed out of the goal. It was a fantastic cross from Lee Croft but somehow it's come back into play off the post - so unlucky, a trademark Sibierski header.

"Then Crofty had a wonderful chance. He had to hit it first-time but unfortunately he decided to have a touch and once he had a touch he gave the defenders that half a second to get back and block his shot.

"And when you see the two chances that OJ has missed it is quite incredible, but he's a young lad.

"Even down to 10 men I wanted to stay as positive as we could, didn't want to draw everyone back into a defensive situation. We kept three up and kept searching for a way back into the game and we had that opportunity with Lupoli but again, with just the 'keeper to beat, he drove his shot against the 'keeper's body. It's just got to stop because it's wounding us."