Colchester United defender Nathan Clarke has described the controversial decision to award a penalty against him at Plymouth Argyle as “very soft”.

Clarke was penalised for a foul on Pilgrims forward Joe Mason with 16 minutes to go at Home Park, leading to Yannick Bolasie scoring from the spot and condemning the U's to a 2-1 defeat.

Clarke felt that referee Oliver Langford, who had earlier red-carded Plymouth midfielder Chris Clark for serious foul play, made the wrong decision in awarding a penalty, which sent Colchester crashing to defeat against League One's bottom club.

Clarke said: “It was very soft.

“Whether the referee was waiting to even it up after the sending off, I don't know.

“He was in a good position and he should have done better than he did.

“I thought that the ball had rolled away from him and he went down very easily.”

Colchester left themselves with a mountain to climb, after former Ipswich Town loanee Rory Fallon had given Plymouth an eighth-minute lead.

And although Stephane Zubar's own goal levelled things up before half-time, Bolasie's hugely debatable penalty won it for the troubled Pilgrims.

“We gave ourselves an uphill challenge, conceding early again,” admitted Clarke.

“That was frustrating but I felt we battled well and got the goal back, just before half-time.

“We probably could have gone in at half-time leading and we had a couple of really good chances to kick on but didn't take them.

“We wanted to kick on in the second half but if anything, the sending off threw us out of our stride a little bit.

“We know that it should have worked in our favour and we should have got players like Lloyd (James) and Ian (Henderson) on the ball a lot more than we did.

“We went a bit longer than we should have done.”

For more on this story and all of the latest Colchester United news, see Monday's Gazette.