JOINT-manager Carl Heeley has branded Worcester City’s red card record as “shameful" and "embarrassing" and revealed his players’ ill-discipline could lead to wholesale changes in the summer.

City picked up their 12th sending off of the season when Dan Nti was shown a second yellow card in the closing stages of their 2-1 defeat at Lowestoft Town on Tuesday night.

The winger was “lucky” to stay on the pitch after the challenge which led to his first booking, according to Heeley, who also claimed referee Carl Fitch only got “10 per cent of the decision right” during the game.

Nti’s dismissal, which follows Wayne Thomas’ sending off at Bradford Park Avenue on Saturday, means Worcester have received more red cards than any other side in English football’s top six divisions.

And Heeley admitted their “disgraceful” haul was largely to blame for their lowly league position as they are just five points clear of the Vanarama National League North drop zone with two games left.

“I thought Dan was lucky to get a yellow, and that probably epitomises everything that has been wrong with this season,” he said.

“It is a shameful.

“To get 12 sendings off in any campaign is a disgraceful number and as I am at helm I am responsible for that.

“It is embarrassing and it is not good enough.”

Four of City’s red cards came in the opening month of the season and Heeley said he and joint-boss Matt Gardiner have “tried everything” to stop their side finishing games with 10 men.

“The only thing we can do is solve it at the end of the season because it has not got any better,” he said.

“It is just petulance. It is stupidity of the highest order and it has wrecked our season.

“When you have been telling players for eight or nine months what we have got to improve on and they are still doing it in April when you have been drilling it into them in August, it doesn’t take much working out that that’s the reason we have struggled to get over the line.

“It is very frustrating.

“When you have completed less than 75 per cent of your games with a full complement of players - and lots of them have been very early in the game - you are giving yourself mountain to climb every week.”

City’s loss at Crown Meadow was labelled as a “missed opportunity” by Heeley as goals from Danny Crow and Connor Deeks boosted Lowestoft’s survival hopes and kept Worcester in the relegation mix-up.

Heeley, whose side travel to AFC Telford United on Saturday (3pm), added: “It is just about getting over that line.

“But we have got to make some wholesale changes because I am sick to death of talking.

“When you talk for eight minutes and people don’t get the message when you have spoken about it for eight months there is a lesson to be learnt there.

“If you can’t change the minds of the personnel, then change the personnel.”