Norwich City under-21s boss Alan Neilson slammed goalkeeper Ellis Craven for losing his side the game after he was sent off in their 2-0 Senior Cup loss to Gorleston.

Goals from Luke Johnson and Adam Tann sealed a second consecutive Carrow Road final for the Greens, but only after Craven had been sent off for his role in a ruckus during half-time.

A clearly frustrated Neilson bemoaned his stopper's actions post-match, rueing the young Canaries' engagement in off-ball distractions.

"That moment just before the first half, we can't condone that," he said. "It was very poor from Ellis. He ran 80 yards and did whatever he did, and it was just stupid.

"That just changed the whole complexion of the game. We went down to 10 men, we tried to adapt and still tried to go forward.

"We created a great chance, and if he scored that it might have gone 1-1 and we might have had a chance. But we didn't take the chances we created against 11 men today, and it is men we're playing against.

"We entered this competition for a reason, we joined it so we could play against men. We said not to get involved in it, and we got involved in too many nitty-bitty things."

Midfielder Joe Duffy replaced Craven for the second half, but couldn't keep the cup holders out at the Football Development Centre.

"I went in at half time and we didn't have a goalkeeper on the bench because Henry Bullen was ill," Neilson told official club channels. "So we just said, 'who wants to go in goal?'

"Fair play, Joe put his hand up, so we put him in goal. Yes, he missed a cross, but I still said that the defenders should be able to mark the man that's coming in.

"But that wasn't the fault in the game. The fault was that one player made a stupid mistake."