SKIPPER Steve Cook believes Jefferson Lerma’s reputation for having a poor disciplinary record played a part in the decision to send him off against Luton.

The Colombian was given his marching orders in the first half on Saturday for catching Hatters defender Tom Lockyer in the face with a trailing arm as the pair challenged for a header, after being nudged mid-air by opposition midfielder Luke Berry.

Lockyer was forced off after his head was bloodied by the collision.

Luton went on to win the game 1-0 thanks to a Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall strike.

It was the second time Lerma had been sent off since joining Cherries in 2018. He has also collected 31 yellow cards in that time, including eight this season.

And Cook believes that record went against the 26-year-old as referee David Webb pondered what punishment to dish out at the weekend.

“In real time I thought it was a foul on Jeff,” Cook told the Daily Echo.

“Their player has kind of made a bridge for him to fall over and obviously everyone’s natural arm movement to a fall is to put your arm out and support yourself.

“Unfortunately for Lockyer he’s caught him on the head and I think the ref seeing blood has definitely influenced his decision on sending him off.

“But the linesman was five yards away from it so maybe he could have helped as well. But no-one wants to make a brave decision. I think it’s the easy option on Jeff to send him off. Everyone sees him as that sort of player so it’s not great.

“Ultimately I think it was a bad decision.”

Asked if he had quizzed Webb as to why he seemingly hesitated before sending Lerma off, Cook added: “No, you can’t say too much to referees. They’re not going to hand out an explanation because they don’t care. He’ll probably drive home thinking he’s had a very good game, so there we go.”

The game was locked at 0-0 before Lerma’s dismissal and despite playing with a man less, Cherries still enjoyed good spells against the Hatters.

However, the visitors snatched the victory through Leicester loanee Dewsbury-Hall’s strike midway through the second half.

Discussing the difficulty in refocussing after the controversial red card, Cook said: “I wouldn’t say it’s tough because ultimately we were still in the game. Nothing changed too much, we still had a solid base, we had opportunities for the counter and whatnot.

“Obviously we were down to 10 men, but ultimately I thought we were the better team on the day. But ultimately we didn’t do enough to get something out of the game.

“That’s frustrating. I feel like we’ve got a good enough team to win with 10 men. We weren’t ruthless enough in either box and it’s cost us.”

Cook threw himself at the shot from Dewsbury-Hall, which then found its way into the bottom corner.

Looking back at the only goal of the game, Cook said: “It took a deflection off myself, trying to block the ball. We’ve lost the ball high up the pitch and we’ve been done down the side by one long ball.

“It’s a frustrating way to concede, because we actually looked quite solid.

“We expected a response at half-time, they gave us one, we had Asmir obviously to thank for keeping us in the game with some magnificent saves.

“But then I felt we were quite comfortable. To concede a goal like that was disappointing.”

The centre-back added: “The frustrating thing is the losses that we’ve had, bar the Brentford game where I thought we should’ve won the game, are against teams that are in the bottom half of the league.

“And we’re dropping too many points at home now, so we’ve got a lot to put right.”