UNDER-fire Fawzi Saadi defended himself after seeing red during Bournemouth Poppies’ dramatic FA Vase exit.

Saadi was sent off for pushing West Auckland Town’s Steven Brown as he tried to take a quick free-kick in the 82nd minute of Saturday’s last-eight showdown at Victoria Park.

West Auckland capitalised by scoring twice in the closing minutes through strikers Michael Rae and Mattie Moffat to claim a 2-0 win and a place in today’s semi-final draw.

Poppies boss Ken Vaughan had no complaints over referee John Hopkins’s decision to dismiss Saadi and labelled the offence “a mindless, stupid thing to do”.

However, former Cherries midfielder Saadi insisted he had been harshly treated. He told the Daily Echo: “I didn’t think I deserved to get sent off in a million years because I didn’t think I had done anything wrong.

“I was fouled and then all I was trying to do was hurry the play. The player was standing right in front of me and I just wanted to push him out the way so I could get going.

“Their player made a massive deal out of it. Every person I spoke to and all the people that were there said to me that I didn’t deserve to get sent off.

“From knowing the rules of football, the referee should have stepped in straight away and pushed the other player so we could play because it was 0-0 and I wanted to get going.”

But an annoyed Vaughan said: “He (Saadi) didn’t give him a decision to make. If you push somebody in the face with two hands, it is a red card.

“The referee was superb throughout the game. A lot of referees probably would have let it go, but those are the rules.”

Saadi was Poppies’ match-winner in the last round against Billingham Synthonia. Vaughan added: “Prior to the sending-off, I thought we were always in with a chance and didn’t think for one minute that we couldn’t nick it from them.”

West Auckland boss Peter Dixon said: “I had a second-hand account of it from my bench and that was that the lad put his hand in my player’s face and my player might have gone down a bit too readily, but I didn’t see the incident myself.”