St Johnstone won’t appeal Alan Mannus red card

Alan Mannus is unimpressed with Brian Colvin's decision to show him a red card. Picture: SNS

The McDiarmid Park boss will challenge referee Brian Colvin’s decision to send off Steven Anderson for deeming the Saints defender had denied Dale Carrick an obvious goalscoring opportunity in the 21st minute of an incident-packed 3-3 draw with the Jambos which means he will feature at Firhill.

However, Wright looked again at the Mannus incident which took place amid a mass brawl near the end of the game when his fellow Northern Irishman squared up to Ryan Stevenson before both were sent packing, and will take no action which means Banks, 41, will add to the three appearances he made at the start of the season.

“We are going to appeal Steven Anderson’s red card,” Wright told Press Association Sport.

“My mind hasn’t changed from Saturday but we will not appeal Alan Mannus’s one.

“There is contact between two players and that can’t be denied so the club and I don’t think there are enough grounds to appeal.

“Steven Banks will come into goal, he did extremely well when he played earlier in the season.”

Wright will also be without Murray Davidson after a serious knee injury saw the midfielder taken away in an ambulance at half-time, but he had more encouraging news about kit man Tommy Campbell who was also rushed to hospital with chest pains.

The Saints manager said: “It is a massive blow, I thought Murray was getting back to his best.

“He will have an operation tomorrow and we wish him a speed recovery but we don’t know the time scale.

“I spoke to Tommy’s wife yesterday and I think he was being released from hospital last night.

“They are still doing further tests and they are waiting on results to come back but I think he has stabilised and that is a good sign.”

Any encouragement Wright can take from the fact that Thistle have yet to win at home in the league this season is tempered by the Saints poor away form - their only league success away from McDiarmid Park was a 2-0 win over Hearts in November.

He said: “I hope that (Thistle’s home record) is the same on Wednesday morning.

“Their home record is probably similar to our away record.

“We have only won once game away from home in the league.

“Sometimes when you get in a run like that, it becomes more of a mental thing than anything else.

“You have to keep giving them belief and get them to do the right things at the right time.

“In a lot of our games away from home it has been fine margins, we haven’t taken our chances when we have been on top and the opposition do.

“So overall our performances probably deserve more points than we have got.

“Thistle put you under a lot of pressure at home, they do play a lot of attacking football and we know we will have to defend properly for 90 minutes.”