MARLOW midfielder Stuart MacLellan saw red on Monday after being sent off by a former co-worker.

He was dismissed in the first half of the Blues' 3-0 defeat against league leaders Slough yesterday by ex-workmate Adrian Piggott.

The combative midfielder saw red after he and Slough's Nathan Bowden-Haase came together when both men put in crunching tackles in a bid to win a loose ball.

But whereas MacLellan was given first use of the showers by the man in black, his manager Kevin Stone felt Bowden-Haase should have walked as well.

He said: "Whatever Stuart got he deserved, but so did the other chap. It was an X rated tackle but it was for both teams. I've seen it a couple of times and I can't believe the other chap is only asked if he's OK.

"It was one where whatever one got, the other one should have got as well. It was a good old fashioned 'I'm going to do you' challenge from both players.

"Stuart ended up with a nasty gash under his knee. The ref sent him off and didn't give their man a yellow. We felt hard done by. If they had both been sent off I wouldn't have argued, or if they had both got a yellow or a talking to, I wouldn't have argued.

"He worked with Stuart and I feel he reffed Stuart on his reputation."

Stone said his side failed to make the most of their first half openings before Slough showed a more clinical edge to win the game 3-0.

That meant Marlow have now not scored in three games, although they seem to have addressed their defensive problems with two clean sheets in their last four games.

Stone said: "We're beginning to get one end of the pitch in order but once you do that the other seems to stop. We were conceding more goals than we were scoring and we've worked hard to stop them at one end."

But he admitted: "The league table doesn't lie. We've put ourselves in an awkward position at the bottom.

"There was a bad run when I was away from the club and confidence is pretty low.

"We've got enough in the squad to win games of football but I don't know if we've got enough to win enough games."

Stone has seen midfielder Johnny Gray move to Burnham and Marcus Mealing and Gavin Lane join Flackwell Heath in recent weeks, and he said Aylesbury have made a seven day approach for Aaron Couch.

He hopes to keep the striker but said: "Financially it's tough. We've lost some of our better players and I can't bring in better than what we've already got. We have to knuckle down and battle on with what we've got."