NEIL Lennon has explained the circumstances behind his sending-off against Birmingham City in his first game in charge.

The new Wanderers boss was sent to the stands by referee Mark Haywood after being warned for “consistent infringement” by fourth official Amy Fern.

Lennon had walked out of his technical area on a number of occasions in a tense second half – but left St Andrew’s with a smile on his face after Matt Mills’ header sealed three points.

Speaking to the press immediately after the game, the Whites boss said: “I got sent off because she said I was consistently leaving my technical area.

“It wasn’t as if I was remonstrating with an official, giving Lee Clark a hard time or arguing with Birmingham players – what I wanted to do was get the message on to Jay Spearing to take the penalty.

“By all accounts Craig has scored the last three but I wanted a technical player to go up and take it, put his foot through it and put the game beyond doubt.

“In the end he’s blasted it over the bar against an outfield goalkeeper. That tells me our game management needs to be a lot better.”

Lennon was pleased with many aspects of Wanderers’ display but believes the scoreline should have been more convincing.

“Seriously, if we had taken a bit more care in the final third we would have won three or four nil,” he said.

“The amount of times we broke on them in the second half but kept giving the ball away cheaply, we were outnumbering them four against three and chose the wrong option.

“You can definitely see they are lacking a little bit in confidence; they were a little bit anxious on the ball. We need to be better with that.

“We got the penalty to go 2-0 up and it would have been thoroughly deserved but unfortunately we missed it.

“I thought the midfield boys gave us a great platform and Andy Lonergan was superb when he was called upon as well.”