Kevin Nolan: Tolaj 'massively let his manager down' with 'wrong' behaviour in Plymouth win

The 24-year-old forward has impressed since joining Plymouth from Port Vale in the summer, netting 10 goals in 16 appearances before the weekend, but he now faces a three-game ban for an off-the-ball swipe at Michael Forbes.

The Pilgrims were trailing 1-0 midway through the second half when Tolaj lashed out at Forbes, an incident spotted by the linesman who subsequently advised the referee to reach for his red card. On top of that, Tolaj then seemed to say something to Nolan as he made his way off the pitch before he booted stray a ball out of the stadium in frustration.

"There were some strange decisions today but the referee got the main one right,” said Nolan. “The red card is clear-cut because it's wrong what he's done there and he's let his manager down today.

"Clevs is a really good lad and a good manager and a good coach. I thought he did a good job at Watford and he was unfortunate to lose his job and now he's gone to Plymouth in difficult circumstances.

"I hope the owners and people the top of the club do the right thing with Tom and keep him in charge because I’m sure they'll soon start moving up the table, but today he's been massively let down by one of his players.”

Cobblers fully capitalised on their numerical advantage as quickfire goals from Elliott List and Jordan Willis completed a dominant away win.

Nolan added: "I'm really pleased with a lot of it in the second half and there were a of good things about the performance. It's a fantastic away win and more so I'm delighted with the clean sheet. We haven't had one for a while so that was important.

"My lads have done brilliantly to come here after the disappointment of Cardiff and get the win. I didn't think we played as nicely as we did last week, especially in the first half, but we got the result we wanted and that's always the most important thing.”

List scored with his first touch when tapping home Jack Perkins’ cutback within 30 seconds of coming on.

Nolan continued: "Listy was unlucky not to score last week but today he comes on and all those things we work on and practice in training every week for months – getting across defenders and getting into the box – came to fruition.

"I want players to get into the right places more often and get more balls into the box and make good runs and it's always nice when you work on things on the training ground and it pays off in a game and then you can show them that it works.”