Roy Hodgson felt referee Andre Marriner was wrong to dismiss Andy Johnson for a second bookable offence during Fulham’s defeat by West Ham this afternoon.

He said: “We think, having watched the video, that it was an unfortunate decision from the referee because it was Lucas Neill, having cleared the ball, who catches Andy Johnson. It was not Andy Johnson kicking him.

“Hopefully the referee will look at that and see that as well. He was trying to block the ball. Will we appeal? We’ll see.”

Overall however, Hodgson had no complaints about his side’s efforts.

He said: “It has to go down as one of those really weird games where you have to be satisfied with a lot of the things we did out there.

“I thought we played some excellent football but within three minutes, a game we looked like being able to win and certainly give a good account of ourselves, within three minutes everything changed.

“I as really amazed how the players in the second half showed their character and physical fitness to work as hard as they did and almost bring us back into the game.

“Unfortunately at this level of football, when you are two goals down it is not easy to come back, especially when you have 10 men rather than 11.”