Smith defends Maupay after Bees draw

Dean Smith insisted Neal Maupay was not to blame for Birmingham having a man sent off despite questioning the striker’s clash with Maikel Keiftenbeld.

The Blues midfielder was shown a straight red card for raising a hand to the head of Maupay, who went down holding his face.

The Birmingham players were incensed with Maupay’s reaction and surrounded the Frenchman and manager Garry Monk was given his marching orders amid the chaos.

Bees boss Smith, whose side drew 1-1, said: “I didn’t see it at the time. I was talking to my staff and I turned round and everyone was going a bit ‘radio rental’.

“But I looked back on the monitor and it looks like Kieftenbeld raises his hand to Neal and pushes him in the head, and he goes down. Is it enough for him to go down? Only Neal knows.

“But don’t blame our player because the fourth official is two yards away and he’s made the decision.

“If I looked at it and Neal hadn’t been touched then yeah… but he’s certainly raised his hand and put it in his head.

“Neal then came over and was having a drink and, as he got up, their players were having a go at him because they thought he was cheating. That’s all that went on. My players were keeping away from it.”

The Bees dropped points for a second successive home game after Josh McEachran’s first senior goal cancelled out Michael Morrison’s opener.

And Smith said: “It was a strange game. We started brightly and made chances, and they didn’t really come here to give us a game.

“Against 10 men we probably just didn’t show that bit of quality. But if one of our chances goes in we are sitting here talking about something totally different.”