Bristol Rovers: Manager Joey Barton criticises team's discipline

Advice from the assistant referee saw Sam Finley sent off early against Port Vale for an off-the-ball incident

Bristol Rovers manager Joey Barton has called on his team to tighten their discipline after they saw two players sent off in the defeat by Port Vale.

Sam Finley and Cian Harries were both shown red cards in Tuesday's 2-1 home loss, taking their total number of red cards this season to seven.

The defeat leaves Bristol Rovers 16th in League Two.

"It's an area of concern, the discipline," Barton told BBC Radio Bristol.

Finley was sent off after just 15 minutes for an off-the-ball incident involving Port Vale's Tom Conlon, a decision Barton questioned.

Rovers were then reduced to nine men late in the second half when Harries was sent off, for his second booking of the night, for bringing down Ben Garrity and preventing a goal scoring opportunity.

Earlier in the campaign Paul Coutts was sent off against Mansfield on the opening day, Alfie Kilgour saw red in the defeat by Swindon, Harries and Trevor Clarke were both sent off during October's draw with Colchester and Glenn Whelan was given a red card against Northampton last month.

The seven red cards are the most of any team in the EFL so far this season.

"That's far too many," Barton added. "Far, far too many in 20-odd games and we need to tighten that up because you can't play with a numerical disadvantage. You'll just make the game a hell of a lot harder than what you need to.

"When I speak to the lads this week about it, we definitely need to tighten up that area.

"It was just a poor performance from us in terms of not staying with 11 men. If you're not staying with 11 men you're always going to make it tough. So, really frustrated but we keep moving forward."

The loss to Port Vale - who moved up to third - means Bristol Rovers have now not won in their past five league matches.

Barton, who took over in February, said he was keen to bring in more players during the upcoming January transfer window to bolster the squad.

"I can't wait for the window to open in January because there's certain parts of the pitch that we could do with reinforcements and obviously at the his moment in time we've got work to do," he said.

"The good thing is about this league is that everyone can beat everyone and you can get on runs, so when we stop shooting ourselves in the foot maybe we can do something special."