St Johnstone manager Steven MacLean explains decision behind Liam Gordon red card appeal

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St Johnstone have appealed the red card shown to skipper Liam Gordon on Saturday.The Perth captain was punished, following a VAR check, for a challenge on Livingston forward Joel Nouble.At the time, manager Steven MacLean did not feel it was worthy of a sending off – and his opinion has certainly not changed.“We will be appealing Gordy’s red card because we feel there’s a real case there,” he said.“He doesn’t make contact with him, he’s put his leg straight to get it out of the way after winning the ball.“We think it was a good tackle, the referee was in a good position to see it in real time and didn’t think it was a foul.“So we’ll put in the appeal and see what the panel make of it.

Hopefully common sense will prevail.”MacLean also remains adamant that referee Graham Grainger’s decision to award Livingston a second-half penalty – which earned them a point – was incorrect.“The penalty was a really hard one to take and I’ve seen Joel Nouble say he didn’t expect it to be a penalty either,” MacLean said. “It seems only one person thought it was.“Watching it back, it still doesn’t make sense to me and even more so when you have VAR there to help the referee.“We keep hearing about clear and obvious errors, but it’s either a penalty or it’s not – there’s nothing else to it.“And I think pretty much everyone is now in agreement that it wasn’t a penalty.“If that’s a foul then you’d be as well saying football is 100 per cent non-contact now.“It was really disappointing, especially when you look at ones like Sima on Jamie Brandon in the Rangers game against Livi last midweek.“I don’t see how that one can be deemed fine, but Gordy’s one – where the contact is miniscule by comparison – is a foul.“We feel a sense of injustice from