Oxford United winger Chris Hackett has blasted Wycombe's Tony Craig, claiming he over-reacted to get him sent off at the Kassam Stadium last Saturday.
Hackett was dismissed for only the second time in his career after the two players tumbled onto the ground in a 34th-minute flare-up.
His teammates dug deep to hang on for an hour and beat Wycombe 2-1 - their first home victory over their Buckinghamshire rivals.
The incident occured not far from the massed ranks of 1,600 Wycombe fans in the North Stand.
Referee Mark Cowburn's attention was drawn to the two players on the ground by an explosion of noise from the Wycombe supporters and he turned to see Craig holding his face.
But Hackett has strongly rejected suggestions that he kicked out at the Chairboys midfielder, who was the club's caretaker-manager before John Gorman was appointed.
"I didn't kick out or lash out," Hackett said. "Their player made an exagerrated reaction to get me sent off.
"It was just a tackle where we both fell to the ground and he fell on top of me.
"You can imagine what it's like when someone falls on top of you, you try and push to get him off you, but I didn't do anything more than that. I remember his head knocking into me.
"The way he reacted was disgraceful and then all their other players ran over.
"It's not nice to see a player react like that to get a fellow professional sent off, but in a way it worked. He achieved what he wanted to do, I suppose.
"I'm just delighted we won the match, but I am gutted to be banned for three games.
"The club are not appealing because there is no video footage of the incident. It happened off the ball and the cameras didn't pick it up.
"The referee said I kicked out, but I didn't, and I don't know what I've done to deserve to be sent off, or to miss three games now.
"The good thing is that there was a game on Monday, so it's only two weeks that I'm out. But I'm very disappointed to miss the home match against Yeovil, because they're top of the table.
"I know I've just got to accept it and knuckle down."
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