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A BITTERSWEET afternoon for Wrexham midfielder Silvio Spann saw the Trinidad international score his first goal for the Dragons before he was sent off in the 90th minute for a professional foul on countryman Hector Sam.


To make matters worse, Neil Mackenzie fired home the subsequent free kick to snatch a 2-1 victory for Notts County and condemn Wrexham to bottom spot in the Football League.

A distraught Spann said afterwards: “I was the last man and I had to chase Sam because if I hadn’t he may well have scored. I had to try and do something because the defence was too high up the field and we left a gap for him to exploit. It was a lack of concentration.

“I can’t argue with the red card because if I’d left him alone he would probably have scored so I had to take a gamble.

“It’s a criminal way to lose the game especially as we battered them in the second half. We should have come away with at least a point today.”

Spann, a 28th-minute substitute for the injured Mark Jones, inspired a second-half Wrexham comeback after an error by Steve Evans gifted the home side their opener.

But he could hide his disappointment, adding: “I’m not used to losing many games but as we said in the dressing room just now, we have to stick together and we have to take responsibility for what goes on out there.

“If we don’t do that nothing will change and we’ll continue to find ourselves struggling.

“We have some good players but we have to work together and I have accepted the responsibility for my sending off which was the result of a gamble that didn’t pay off.

“The first goal for your club is always the most enjoyable and I felt I might have had another but my shot hit Eifion (Williams) and the ball spun away off his heel otherwise it would have been in the back of the net.”

Under-pressure Wrexham boss Brian Carey refused to discuss his position, claiming that a 79th-minute injury to Simon Spender had proved costly, leaving the substituted defender with blurred vision.

“If Spender had stayed on the field, we’d have come away with at least a point, which was the least that we deserved,” he said.

“The second half performance was what we have been seeking for a while and we went at it with a real purpose and got ourselves back in the game. There were some very, very good performances but we were unfortunate with the injuries that we had.

“It was just one of those days today and we are going home gutted that we haven’t taken anything from a game which we looked like winning in the second half.”

Carey declined to comment on the sending-off but added:

“Spann scored a spectacular goal and that’s what he is capable of.

“Our fans can look forward to seeing more of that from him because it’s really a bit too soon for him to be playing. Every performance from him is a bonus for us because he is going to be a good player for us when he settles in.

“I was disappointed with the way we started in the first half because we didn’t have the purpose I wanted and we gave them a shocking goal, which you could say was typical of us.”