Colin Todd fears that old-fashioned tackling is being driven out of the game.

The City boss was bitterly upset to see Lee Crooks sent off in Saturday's 1-0 defeat at Wrexham.

Crooks immediately misses the home game with in-form Bristol City as does Dean Windass, who has reached five yellow cards and also faces a ban straight away under the new disciplinary timescale for this season. Todd, who had warned his players to keep their discipline, was fuming with referee Mark Warren for dismissing Crooks after a strong tackle on Wrexham striker Hector Sam.

Crooks had already been booked for kicking the ball away and was given his marching orders to leave City a man down for the final 25 minutes.

Todd said: "I want my players to win tackles and I though Crooksy was harshly sent off. But I think tackling is going out of the game of football.

"Steve Schumacher made a perfectly good tackle in the first half and got penalised so what can you do?"

Warren also came under fire for NOT showing the red card to Wrexham goalkeeper Andy Dibble for handling outside his penalty area. Dibble was booked - and then escaped any punishment for time-wasting when he picked up the ball to prevent City taking a quick corner and ran back towards his goal with it.

Todd said: "I'm not blaming the referee for our loss because we've had enough opportunities to win the game. But his performance was just not acceptable.

"Even their manager Denis Smith couldn't believe the standard of the referee and the decisions he made, especially in the first 45 minutes. But what can we do? We can only fill in our reports and give him no marks.

"Managers are fair with referees if we see them doing the right thing. But for 90 minutes out there I thought he totally lost it."

Todd was upbeat about his team's performance after the shock of conceding a goal inside 84 seconds.

He added: "We got caught cold early on trying to play offside when there was no need. But I thought we totally dictated for long periods and I'm still convinced that if we can play in that manner, we will win more games than we lose."