The red, the referee and bottom spot ... the story of Rotherham United 1 Swansea City 2

The centre-half should have been giving that head of his a shake in a different way.

How could a player of his age, his pedigree, his experience contrive to get himself needlessly sent off with less than a quarter of a crucial Championship contest played?

This was Rotherham United versus Swansea City, a chance for the Millers at AESSEAL New York Stadium to put points on the board in their battle to escape the relegation reckoning against a team, like them, without a permanent manager.

Dan's denseness turned a winnable game into one where there was little hope. By the final whistle, the home team, despite a stirring second-half fightback, were even more firmly entrenched in the drop zone.

Bottom spot. Eight points adrift of safety. That old joke doing the rounds: they'll be down before the Christmas decorations are.

Ayala conceded a throw-in and trotted away with the ball. Soft, but a booking in this season of intolerance.

Only a couple of minutes later, he had a little halfway-line nibble at Charlie Patino and then, immediately, a much bigger one as the Swans midfielder tried to run clear of him. Man in the middle Josh Smith took a while to decide but another caution duly came.

“The first one, Daniel has to be better,” said interim boss Wayne Carlisle. “He's held his hands up, he knows that. He doesn't need me to wave a finger at him for it.

“The second one, I don't know. There's the laws of the game and the referees have to stick to those. But I also think there's a certain amount of discretion that has to be exercised in those situations.”

Ah, referees. We're back on that sorry topic again. In a season when Rotherham are doing themselves barely any favours the officials are doing them even fewer.

There was that Swans handball that wasn't given, then there was that other Swans handball that wasn't given and then there was that third Swans handball that wasn't given.

The first brought the visitors their opening goal on the stroke of half-time as Patino half-turned his back on a cross only for the ball to hit his arm and bounce slowly but irrevocably into the net.

The second, when Jamie Paterson touched Ollie Rathbone's cross, cost Rotherham a penalty in their chase for an equaliser.

The last one, in added time, as Ben Cabango's arm clearly diverted Seb Revan's shot inside the area was the ref's worst call of the lot and could have consequences stretching beyond Saturday's clash.

“I have seen it back and it looks like it is a handball in regards to the fact the ball has definitely hit his arm,” said Carlisle in reference to the Patino incident.

The caretaker chief showed diplomacy to match his decency on the spot-kick shouts: "I haven't had a chance yet to see those back.

“The second one in real time? I don't know. Their player's back was to me if I remember rightly and there were a couple of other players around him. The linesman would have had the best view so if anyone was going to give it it was him.”

Eleven v 11, the Millers had been the better side and Christ Tiehi had tested visiting goalkeeper Carl Rushworth with a snap-shot before Ayala bade his yellow-tinged farewell.

A man down and starved of possession, Rotherham relied on their own number one, Viktor Johansson to keep them in the match. The Swede produced sharp reactions to deny Jamal Lowe, twice, Jay Fulton and Harry Darling and saved his best stop of all for preventing Lee Peltier having an ‘og’ against his name.

Sam Nombe had become an isolated figure up front for Carlisle's side but suddenly New York was alive with possibilities as the striker tuned up with two off-target shots while the Millers' ten men were pinning back the Swans and then nudged in Hakeem Odoffin's flick-on from Sean Morrison's 63rd-minute long throw.

In the interest of fairness, there was as much an element of handball in his finish as there had been in Patino's.

An unlikely dream of an unlikely comeback lasted for ten minutes until Jerry Yates struck for Swansea. The Millers old boy got lucky in the way Peltier's attempt to cut out the pass fell perfectly for him but there was no fortune involved in the clinical manner of his dispatch.

“We knew what we wanted to do as soon as the player was sent off but it's really hard to get the messages on and get the detail into it,” Carlisle said. “We re-structured at the break and got ourselves into some sort of shape.

“I said to the players at half-time, it is not a defensive shape, it is a shape to stay in the game, not concede another goal and later in the game we start pushing them back and putting them under pressure. I believe we did that to a certain degree.

“The big decision early on, that is where the game turns. I'm really, really disappointed.”

The final whistle - just like half-time had done - brought the depressingly familiar sound of officials being roundly booed off.

However, an even bigger villain than the ref had spent most of his afternoon watching from the dugout.

Ayala.

Rotherham (4-2-3-1): Viktor Johansson; Lee Peltier (Tom Eaves 90+1), Daniel Ayala, Hakeem Odoffin, Seb Revan; Christ Tiehi, Jamie Lindsay (Grant Hall 77); Arvin Appiah (Sean Morrison H-T), Ollie Rathbone (Georgie Kelly 85), Cohen Bramall; Sam Nombe (Jordan Hugill 77). Subs not used: Dillon Phillips, Dexter Lembikisa, Ciaran McGuckin.

Swansea (4-1-4-1): Carl Rushworth; Josh Key, Ben Cabango, Harry Darling, Josh Tymon (Bashir Humphreys 90+2); Matt Grimes; Jamie Paterson (Liam Cullen 90+2), Jay Fulton, Charlie Patino (Liam Walsh 67), Yannick Bolasie (Jerry Yates 58); Jamal Lowe. Subs not used: Andy Fisher, Kyle Naughton, Ollie Cooper, Sam Parker, Cameron Congreve.

Goals: Nombe 63 (Rotherham); Patino 45, Yates 73 (Swansea).

Referee: Josh Smith (Peterborough).

Attendance: 9,414 (495).