Fulham boss Martin Jol felt captain Brede Hangeland was hard done by after the defender was sent off as the Cottagers went down to a 3-1 defeat against Sunderland.
Norway international Hangeland was dismissed after 31 minutes for a two-footed challenge on Lee Cattermole with the game still goalless.
Second-half goals from Steven Fletcher, Carlos Cuellar and Stephane Sessegnon secured Sunderland's first league win in seven attempts although substitute Mladen Petric had levelled for 10-man Fulham.
But Jol felt Hangeland had not gone in maliciously on Cattermole and said he would like to see referees use more common sense when making such decisions.
"I think he was probably the only one in the stadium who really thought it was a red card," he said.
"It would have been nice if most of the referees had played football themselves, it would be nice if sometimes they could make decisions in the spirit of the game.
"I can't remember having a red card at this club, he (Hangeland) is a nice boy and told me it was not intentional, he slipped. I won't say that it is a common thing for him because I haven't seen him do this tackle."
Jol, who will now be without Hangeland for three matches, also lost Alex Kacaniklic and Bryan Ruiz to hamstring injuries during the match and confirmed both are likely to be out for at least three weeks, while Petric played on after requiring stitches in a foot injury.
Even though he was forced into a number of changes and saw his side play for almost an hour with 10 men Jol still felt they were good enough to have got something out of the game.
"Maybe we should have scored once or twice and had a cushion to help, even with 10 men I think we did OK," he said.
"With the quality players we have got I thought we still could have scored one or two goals.
"The shape was gone (following the injuries) and they could have scored one or two more but we could have scored three, the third goal was probably the killer goal."
