Still has no complaints over Wilkinson red but shocked McNulty decision upheld

Wilkinson was dismissed for the second time this season when as the last man, he tripped Antony Sweeney, leaving referee James Linington little alternative.

Still said: “From what I saw, I’ve got no complaints. In fairness to him, we’d started to come up as a unit, they had a couple of people in offside positions and Robbo (Matt Robinson) lost the ball in front of him.

“It put him in that no mans land really.”

That made it two dismissals in successive matches for the Hatters, with influential skipper McNulty missing the first of his four games.

On the decision to uphold the red received against York on Tuesday night, Still continued: “There were two sendings off in that game, but there were worse tackles today, not including the sending off.

“It wasn’t a unanimous decision, it was a majority decision and I’ve got to be honest, I am shocked that it wasn’t rescinded, really shocked.”

Both Alex Lacey and Fraser Franks are now expected to deputise up against Mansfield and AFC Wimbledon, as Still said: “That’s why we’ve got four centre halves. They defended very well and have to do it for the next two games.”

Despite going down to 10 men for the final 25 minutes, Still was proud of his side’s resilience as they kept a clean sheet to close the gap on the top three to a single point.

He added: “They are a big, big side and got it wide, knocked lots of balls in but by and large we dealt with it well.

“Obviously it’s a little bit more difficult when you go down to 10, but the resilience of the team was first class.

“There were a few scrambles, but Tyles (Mark Tyler) hasn’t really had to make a save when you consider that Wilko was off and (Steve) McNulty wasn’t playing, so I was really pleased.”

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