Have your say: Warnock believes ‘thousands of screaming Millwall fans’ led to Varney’s sending-off

Luke Varney was sent off early in the second half for elbowing Adam Smith before Wood headed home Shane Lowry’s inch-perfect cross five minutes from time.

But Warnock insisted that Halsey had got it wrong in giving Varney his marching orders which left his side still without a Championship win since October 6.

He said: “I thought we were very short-changed. I thought we did all right in the circumstances – we tried to win the game. At half-time we changed it a bit and it lasted two minutes.

“The amount of effort that’s gone into the game and we’re talking about a refereeing decision – it’s scandalous.

“When you watch the sending-off again, we don’t have thousands of Millwall fans screaming at us. It’s not caught him where he’s holding when he’s gone down.

“I wish we did it more – you might call it cheating – but I’ve seen Adam Drury get topped and keep going. He should go down and roll, shouldn’t he? We don’t get free-kicks, and we wonder why.

“Referees aren’t as consistent – they’ve gone backwards, I think. I didn’t think someone of Mark Halsey’s quality and experience would have gone straight for his red card, and I think he’ll be disappointed when he sees it, but that will do us no good.

“I’m looking forward to the next few games – I think we can start with 11 men, can’t we?”

Warnock had seen his team reduced to 10 players for the second time in two games after Jason Pearce was dismissed in the 6-1 home defeat by Watford.