SOUTHEND United manager Phil Brown called for referee Dean Whitestone to be ‘brought to task’ following the Shrimpers’ 2-1 defeat at Gillingham on Saturday.

Brown was angered by a soft penalty awarded to the hosts and a red card shown to Blues centre-back Ryan Inniss just before the break.

And the two decisions also led Brown to question if Whitestone should be allowed to continue officiating in League One.

“Somebody really does needs to be brought to task on this,” fumed Brown.

“If I was brought to task for being unruly or not doing my job properly I would be sacked and he needs to be brought to task for his performance.

“The referee initially crosses his arms to wave away the penalty appeals and then gives it.

“That for me is someone who shouldn’t be officiating at this level.

“It’s down to pressure and if you can’t handle pressure then you shouldn’t be officiating.

“But this was officiating as its worst and this has cost us three points.”

Josh Wright fired home the spot-kick which was given when Jason Demetriou was adjudged to have brought down Cody McDonald before the Gills midfielder doubled the home-side’s lead.

However, Brown felt the decision to send off Inniss, for a second bookable offence, was even more debatable.

“The sending off is even worse than the penalty,” said the Blues boss, whose side now sit sixth in the League One standings.

“It’s actually a free kick for Ryan Inniss.

“It’s the wrong decision to give the free-kick so to then compound it with a second yellow card is unbelievable refereeing.

“We have been unhinged by some very strange and poor decisions.”

But Brown feared the officials could take centre stage after being alarmed by a pre-match comment.

“The referee said something to me before the game with regards to how his card had been marked as to what kind of game this would be,” said Brown.

“He mentioned how it was a derby and the friction there was but you can’t take that into consideration because it’s still a game of football.

“He made some really poor decisions and every one of them seemed to go against us.

“I’m not here to say he’s a good ref or a bad one.

“But he’s just had a poor performance which has cost us heavily and it hurts.”