Tony Pulis praised his Stoke side after their 1-0 win over Manchester City at the Britannia Stadium, while accepting Rory Delap deserved his red card.
Stoke defended doggedly to secure a victory that saw them play with ten men from the 38th minute onwards, after Delap saw red for a petulant challenge on Shaun Wright-Phillips.
Pulis accepts Delap had to go but believes Wright-Phillips was the architect of the incident following his poor challenge on Matthew Etherington seconds earlier.
But Pulis was keener to praise his 10 men for their battling display. He said: "We showed tremendous resilience throughout, but in the second half we were outstanding.
"We work hard on our defending. We do a tremendous amount of work with our defensive eight against 11 in training, because we know we will constantly be up against it against very, very good teams.
"I tell them, it's life, this is what you are going to have to do. You have to stick in there when we are put under pressure like that by very good players.
"As for the sending-off, I have no complaints about the decision because Rory should not have done what he did.
"But I am desperately disappointed with the decision seconds earlier not to penalise Wright-Phillips for his tackle on Etherington.
"He slid in and got nowhere near the ball. The decision not to penalise that was very poor. But I cannot condone when Rory did."
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