Dons lodge appeal to overturn Martin’s red card

Josh Martin, along with his MK Dons team-mates, were stunned by his first-half red card at the Lamex Stadium on Tuesday

MK Dons are waiting to hear back whether Josh Martin’s red card away at Stevenage on Tuesday night will be overturned.

The 20-year-old was shown a straight red on the stroke of half-time following an innocuous looking clash with Boro’s Bruno Andrade, leaving Dons to play the second half, and subsequently extra time as well, with 10-men.

“We have submitted an appeal so we’re waiting on the outcome of that,” Liam Manning confirmed.

The performance of referee Alan Young came under fire from head coach Manning following the full-time whistle at the Lamex Stadium as Dons eventually went out of the FA Cup thanks to a 120th minute Luke Norris penalty - an incident which also saw Harry Darling sent off for his second booking.

And speaking to the media on Friday, Manning explained the process of how clubs go about discussing the performance of referees to the governing body.

“After each game, we complete an assessment on how we felt the game went, we submit a report as to how we felt the officials did,” he said. “We’ve had a couple of follow-up calls, not this week, to understand the process of what gets done with that report and how the assessors support the officials and referees.

“But we try not to dwell on it. They’re human – they have good games and bad games. We have to learn from the frustration of it.

“It won’t change anything, so we have to move on.”