Exeter City: Red cards will affect play-off push, says manager Matt Taylor

Tom Parkes will face a three-match ban after his red card at Crawley

Exeter City manager Matt Taylor says recent indiscipline among his players will affect his squad's fitness.

Tom Parkes was sent off in the 2-0 loss at Crawley Town on Saturday while the Grecians had Alex Hartridge and Ryan Bowman dismissed at Newport County.

The Grecians are three matches into a run of 10 games in just 37 days.

"With nine men for so long at Newport and 10 men today on the back of the games and the travel, the lads can't keep doing that," Taylor said.

"The players have got to understand that if they feel under pressure to challenge and compete you've got to do it in a way where you don't give the referee the opportunity.

"It's the rest of the players that have had to put in the extra work, and it might not cost us in terms of points and goals today, but I can guarantee there'll be some tired bodies going into Tuesday and then the following Saturday and it'll be a build-up again," he told BBC Radio Devon.

The defeat was a first in five games for Exeter and saw them slip out of the play-off places in League Two.

Former Exeter striker Tom Nichols scored the opener from a penalty just after the hour mark before Ashley Nadesan wrapped up the win late on.

Taylor was unhappy with the decision to award Crawley a penalty for an alleged pull by Jake Caprice on Nick Tsaroulla, who had been fouled by Parkes in the red card incident 11 minutes earlier.

"It wasn't a penalty. You defend one on one in the box and naturally arms are going to be involved," he said.

"There was no pull, it was an arm, but the lad was off-balance and going backwards anyway.

"The players closest to it said it was a dive and I trust what my players say in relation to that.

"But similar to the sending-off and similar to the Newport one the referee couldn't wait to blow his whistle and give that penalty, which is a shame because we might not have won that game, but we might still have got something out of the game."