As you may have read in The Royal Gazette earlier this week I received my first red card for New England Revolution last Saturday and will miss tonight's crucial play-off match against Chicago Fire as punishment.

It's a blow for me because you're always desperate to feature in the big games but hopefully I'll be back involved next Thursday for the second leg in Chicago.

I'm pretty confident we will get a good result in front of our own fans tonight and it's vital we get off to a good start.

To be honest I thought the tackle looked a lot worse than it really was. Sure, I intended it to be a hard challenge but I was going for the ball and just got my timing wrong.

I caught the guy, Herculez Gomez, a little bit but it was not the sort of challenge that was going to cause him a serious injury and he had time to jump out of way.

The fact I went crashing into the advertising boards made the tackle look more aggressive than it actually was and probably made up the referee's mind to send me off.

We were already down to ten-men having had Gabriel Badilla dismissed earlier on in the first half and I thought I may have got away with it. But I have no complaints with the referee's decision and I probably had to go.

Our coach Steve Nicol asked me about the challenge after the game and I told him the truth, I'd gone for the ball but just got it all wrong.

He didn't give me a stern talking or anything and these things happen in football.

If my memory serves me correct it's the third time I've been given an early shower in my career. I was sent off playing for my college in the US and also picked up a red card while I was at Carolina Dynamo. I'm not a dirty player but, as I say, these things happen.

It's true the Revs didn't finish the regular season in good form and have not won in quite a few games now.

But the players are not worried about it as we've been here so many times before and know the play-offs are almost like the start of a new season.

It's a clean slate for us and our play-off record is extremely good and that could give us the psychological advantage when it really matters.

And this is the stage of the season when it really does matter.

See you at the corner flag!