Partick Thistle manager Alan Archibald has revealed that the club are appealing the red card shown to Christie Elliott in Wednesday night’s defeat to St Johnstone.

Elliott was dismissed in the final minute of the match for an apparent kick out at Saints striker Graham Cummins, but upon reviewing the incident, Archibald feels the sending off was harsh.

“We are going to appeal it,” Archibald said. “I didn’t see it at the time because it was so far away. I have watched it back and there was very little in it.

“I heard it was a stamp, but it certainly wasn’t a stamp. He just kicks his foot out. I don’t really think it is a sending off.

“I don’t know if the referee catches it out of the corner of his eye and thinks there is more in it than what there is.

“It was a bit of petulance but not a sending off.”

Coming so late, the dismissal of Elliott had nothing to do with the end result of the game, and Archibald conceded that their streetwise opponents had protected their lead well.

The Firhill pitch is also starting to cause the Jags boss some concern, after holding up well so far throughout the winter.

“St Johnstone are an experienced side and they saw out the game well,” he said. “They have been over the course before.

“But, our lads have defended well in recent weeks so I don’t want to be too hard on them.

“In the first half we were decent and created a number of goods opportunities. But we didn’t take them.

“The biggest disappointment was the second half as we didn’t really get going at all.

“The goal was a bad error and then we had to chased the game.

“I don’t think the pitch helped us either and we struggled to get the ball moving.

“It is starting to cut up so maybe we need to change the way we are going to play on it.”

That worry is for another week though, as a difficult away fixture at Aberdeen looms on the horizon this Saturday.

“Aberdeen away is tough fixture but we will go there and be positive,” Archibald added.

“There have been a lot of positive signs over the past couple of months.

“Maybe we should have more than five wins but I’m sure most of the teams in the bottom half will say the same thing.

“We didn’t score enough earlier in the season and conceded too many.

“You have got to score when you are on top.”