What Sheffield Wednesday manager Garry Monk said about Massimo Luongo's red card in ‘unacceptable’ 5-0 drubbing against Blackburn Rovers

The Australian midfielder was given his marching orders by countryman Jarrod Gillett midway in the 23rd minute for a challenge on Lewis Travis.

The 40-year-old Owls boss claimed players and staff on both sides were taken aback by the sending off, which was the first red card of Luongo’s career.

Despite the red card decision, Monk described the defeat as ‘self-inflicted’ and bemoaned the intensity of his player’s performance, particularly in the first 10 minutes of the match, pinpointing his team’s lack of intensity and decision making with the ball at feet.

“Of course the red card changes it, but I don’t want to use that as an excuse,” he said.

“It’s 100 per cent not a red card. There’s no intention to it, no malice, there’s no aggression.

“Speaking to all of their players and their staff and ours, nobody could quite believe that it was a red card.

“We’ll 100 per cent be appealing that and that’s something that 100 per cent should be rescinded, the referee has made a clear mistake for that.”

Wednesday were already a goal down and while few Owls fans will excuse an abject home performance, it was a key moment in what was the club’s heaviest home defeat for nearly two decades.

Monk said: “For me as a manager and when you have a result like that, it’s not acceptable and quite rightly we will receive criticism.

“We have to take that on the chin and take responsibility for that, me as a manager for sure, with that type of result and scoreline.”

The result is Wednesday’s third home defeat on the spin and arrested a run of six matches without a win for Blackburn.

After October’s 2-1 defeat at Ewwod Park it is the first time Rovers have done the double over the Owls since their Premiership-winning season of 1994/95.