KARL Robinson felt his yellow card against Forest Green Rovers ignited a reaction from Oxford United.

The U's head coach was cautioned an hour into the Papa John's Trophy clash, following an exchange of words with the visitors' bench after Rob Hall was caught by a late challenge.

Mide Shodipo equalised three minutes later as United produced their best spell of the half, before winning 4-1 on penalties to reach the third round.

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But Robinson was unhappy with challenges on Hall and Anthony Forde and made his feelings known, with one of the Sky Bet League Two club's coaches also getting booked for the incident.

He said: "I don’t like people saying 'you’re getting relegated and we’re getting promoted'.

"I said that there’s no blood on my players (in reply).

"He called me arrogant, but I protected my players. I stupidly retaliated and I’m the one that gets a booking.

"The referee missed two clear elbows – the one on Hally’s terrible, his jaw’s in a right state.

"The one on Fordey when the ball’s gone is just as bad as any of them.

"The fourth official was saying it’s an elbow and he (the referee) just carried on."

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Robinson added: "I thought we rolled our sleeves up and we had a bit of anger.

"I’ll take a booking every single week if there’s a response like that."

The U's boss was also baffled by the decision to hold the shoot-out at the fence end for the first time in the Kassam Stadium's history. 

He said: “I don’t know whether it was the referee’s decision or a safety decision.

"How can we go ten months without fans in the stadium and do a penalty shoot-out at an end where there’s no fans.

"I’d expect the penalties to be where the fans are because we’ve missed them so much.”