McLeish: Players must learn

Alex McLeish has admitted that Birmingham may have been 'over-zealous' against Aston Villa and must learn from their mistakes. The Football Association confirmed on Tuesday that Blues had been hit with disciplinary action following the dramatic 1-0 defeat to their Midlands rivals. The club has been charged with failing to ensure their players conducted themselves in an orderly fashion after referee Martin Atkinson was surrounded by a furious group following his award of a controversial late penalty.Stephen Carr has also been charged with improper conduct for allegedly making an offensive gesture to Villa fans at the end of the match. McLeish has defended his players for showing passion but concedes they probably stepped over the line."Listen, the boys are passionate, they care, they're winners," McLeish told the Birmingham Mail. "They saw something as an injustice and fought for their cause, maybe over-zealously."Anybody who has emotion, any normal person, it's hard to keep that emotion in check in those circumstances, especially in a game like Sunday's, a derby with what was at stake."The players went to the ref and I don't think it was in a confrontational manner. I felt we were just asking the question, which was to speak to his assistant. But he thought it was a penalty as well."It's something that hopefully the boys will learn from if a similar thing happens to them again."Carr has requested a personal hearing to answer his charge, while West Midlands Police are also expected to question the defender over the incident.McLeish commented: "I didn't know anything was alleged to have happened until Monday. Somebody told me."In fact, one of the press might have told me after the game that Stephen had made a hand gesture or something, but it didn't register."The players walk off the pitch or down the track and some of the things you hear from the fans, it's frightening - and I'm not saying it's just opposition fans, I'm sure our fans dish it out as well - and you really have to have a thick skin and ignore the comments."McLeish shrugged off his own angry reaction to the penalty decision, saying: "What can you say? "From the dugout I couldn't tell it was a penalty. But I knew from Roger's reaction that he had got the ball. There was no way he would fight his corner like that if he hadn't touched the ball."And from that second onwards we knew the referee had made the wrong decision."

Source: Team_Talk