Shrewsbury captain 'gutted' by red card

The Town skipper faces a three-match ban after being sent off for pushing Richard Duffy in retaliation, after the Vale defender went in late on goalkeeper Mark Halstead at the death today.

Boss Mellon said: "If you raise your hands, you run the risk of the referee sending you off. But he's never done that here before - he's gutted and it's a moment he'll be disappointed with.

"The lad kicked out and then he stood up and the two of them came together.

"But you can't raise your hands in those situations - there's no scale of one to 10 by how much you've raised your hands by."

Knight-Percival is now set to miss the games against Wigan - when new defender Jack Hendry is ineligible - Millwall and Bradford, and Mellon added Town will miss him.

He said: "Absolutely because he's big player, but we'll get something organised for the next game."

Sullay Kaikai's fifth goal in as many games and 10th of the season rescued a point for Town, after Louis Dodds headed Vale in front.

Town's ninth game unbeaten made it nine points clear of the drop zone with eight games left.

Mellon felt it was a deserved point after Shaun Whalley missed a sitter just beforehand.

He said: "It was a bit of magic from Sullay. We missed a great chance to equalise before that - it was a ridiculous chance to miss really and we were disappointed to miss that.

"You've got to take chances like that if you're going to win games in this league."

Mellon recalled Jermaine Grandison rather than hand a debut to on-loan Wigan defender Hendry in place of Dominic Smith, who is with Wales Under-21s.

He said: "Jack has only had two hours' training and you've got to be fair to him and the other lads.

"If I needed to use him I would have and I have every confidence in him doing very well.

"It was more to do with Jermaine knowing the details of how we defend and the big fellow (Hendry) will need to get to know that. "