Lincoln manager Michael Appleton felt Morgan Whittaker showed his inexperience after scoring then seeing red in the 2-1 win at Charlton.

The 21-year-old, on loan from Swansea, opened the scoring for the visitors but was sent off for a second-half challenge.

The game had already seen one dismissal, with Alex Gilbey red-carded in the first half for the hosts.

Despite a late Charlton goal, Lincoln left south London with the win, but Appleton felt Whittaker was “silly”.

He said: “Morgan is not the type to get sent off for any high challenges. It was just a bit silly to give the referee that decision.

“But he’ll learn from that, he’s a very young lad still. He’s still inexperienced at the amount of game time he’s had.

“It was a strange game, when it was 11 against 11 it felt really comfortable, we played well and caused problems.

“We said at half-time not to give the referee an opportunity to square it up and unfortunately that’s what we did.

“Once we got the second goal we’re a little bit calmer. But all of a sudden you can drop deeper and we did that.”

Charlton almost opened the scoring on 23 minutes when Jayden Stockley turned a Gilbey cross onto the crossbar from close range.

Lincoln went ahead 10 minutes later, when Whittaker was left to find room to deliver a fine strike from the edge of the box.

It got worse for the hosts eight minutes before the interval when Gilbey saw red for a second bookable offence.

Lincoln were also a man down 12 minutes after the restart when Whittaker lunged into Ben Purrington.

Anthony Scully looked to have sealed all three points on 76 minutes when he controlled the ball in the box and fired in the top corner.

A late Stockley header made it an uncomfortable last few minutes for the visitors, who held on.

Charlton manager Johnnie Jackson felt his side were too wasteful in front of goal.

He said: “I don’t really know how we’ve lost it to be honest. I thought we created enough chances to at least get a draw – probably more.

“I’m disappointed with the two goals, and disappointed we haven’t taken the chances. It was a game decided in both boxes and we’ve got the wrong side of it.

“It’s a bit naive from Gilbey, he got booked for pulling the guy back for the first one, and it was almost identical.

“For the first Lincoln goal, I thought we could have been a bit stronger in the tackle a couple of times to clear the ball.”