Nottingham Forest legend Garry Birtles has warned goalkeeper Brice Samba must learn his lesson, after being sent off against Stoke City.
The Reds stopper received a straight red card for swatting Phil Jagielka around the back of the head in the 85th minute at the City Ground.
Not only did it leave his team down to 10 men, it gave the Potters a penalty, from which Lewis Baker scored to put the visitors 2-1 ahead.
And with all three substitutes having been made, centre-back Joe Worrall had to replace Samba in goal.
It was left to Ryan Yates to spare his keeper’s blushes as the midfielder rescued a point with a header in stoppage time.
Samba has become well-known for his winding-up tactics since signing for Forest in the summer of 2019. But Birtles says he has to know where to draw the line - otherwise it could prove even more costly in the future.
“The words I was hearing coming out of everybody’s mouths was, ‘it’s been an accident waiting to happen’, that it’s been coming for a long time. The number of people who said that was absolutely staggering,” said the European Cup winner, speaking on the latest episode of NottinghamshireLive’s Garibaldi Red podcast.
“That moment of madness, what can you say? The manager and his coaching staff didn’t even look at Samba as he walked past. I quite liked that.
“It was a definite sending off.
“He was lucky not to get sent off in the Derby game, with that tanglement in the back of the net. Learn your lessons!
“You’ve got to put it to bed now, it’s gone, you can’t change it. But the big thing is he has got to learn from it. If he doesn’t learn from it, then you shouldn’t be there, because it was a horrendous mistake. But we got away with it.
“He would have been giving everybody a big pat on the back in that dressing room - and so he should do.”
A three-match suspension will see Samba miss some big games for Steve Cooper’s side, starting with Friday night’s trip to Bournemouth.
But trying to quash an aspect of his game which makes him the goalkeeper he is, might not be so easy.
Birtles added: “Can you coach stupidity out of somebody? Yes, you should be able to.
“There’s only one person who can sort it out and change it around, and that’s Brice. He’s got to realise that he can’t do things like that.
“It’s just an embarrassment, because it’s so obvious and so blatant. The referee was right next to him.
“The referee had no option but to give a penalty.
“Everybody knows it could have been so costly.
“It was stupid. I don’t know what was going through his mind.
“I played with some great keepers at Forest. They all had their little idiosyncrasies, but nobody went and did things like that. It was just madness.
“You could hear the gasps around the ground.
“It was one idiotic moment. But let’s hope he learns from it.”
