Nahki Wells has admitted his annoyance with Huddersfield Town team-mate Rajiv van La Parra who was dismissed after just 25 minutes away to Reading at the weekend.

Huddersfield lost the match 1-0 to cost them top spot in the Sky Bet Championship, with Wells believing his team’s fortunes could have been very different had Van La Parra kept his cool after being fouled.

The Dutchman, who had already been booked, was shown a second yellow card for dissent to leave Huddersfield with an uphill struggle after trailing Reading to a 41st-minute strike by Roy Beerens.

Wells attempted to calm Van La Parra down prior to him receiving his red card and said the former Wolverhampton Wanderers winger had apologised for his lapse in judgment.

Van La Parra will now miss tonight’s home game against Rotherham United, as will captain Mark Hudson and Chris Lowe after both picked up a fifth caution of the season.

“Rajiv overreacted to being fouled,” Wells told the Huddersfield Examiner. “He reacted wrongly. In my opinion it did not warrant any card as we had the foul.

“He was walking away and he flung his hands. There are new rules and that is a yellow card.

“I was trying to call him, just to give him a chance of sorting it out with the referee.

“He let us down but we are a team, we move on — there are plenty of times where players are sent off and let the team down but we need to keep our heads up.

“He knows what he has done, he was apologetic, and we won’t point the finger at him. We’ll go again and work hard to try to get the three points against Rotherham.”

Wells said Huddersfield’s numerical disadvantage was further exposed by their opponents’ possession-based football.

“It’s a disappointment because we could have got three points,” Wells added. “It was that more difficult by him getting sent off.

“It’s difficult to be a man down against a side who play very well with possession and try to keep you from having the ball.

“I felt we stayed in the game and as it wore on it was always going to be us who would get the next goal. We created four or five chances and they could all have gone in.”

Wells, Huddersfield’s top scorer last season with 18 goals, has struck once this season in eight appearances.

Huddersfield are second in the table, one point behind leaders Norwich City.

• Reggie Lambe came on in the 58th minute in Carlisle United’s 1-0 home win against Wycombe Wanderers on Saturday.

Shaun Miller scored Carlisle’s winner in the 57th minute to lift them to sixth in the League Two table. Carlisle are away to Doncaster Rovers today.