Sunderland appeal George Honeyman's dismissal at Wycombe as Jack Ross discusses touchline melee

Honeyman saw red in injury time after a touchline melee with also saw the Chairboys' Nathan Tyson dismissed.

The midfielder, who had been withdrawn earlier in the second half, now looks set to be sidelined for three games - starting with tomorrow's trip to Barnsley.

However, Sunderland have launched an appeal against the dismissal and are hopeful of an outcome before the close of play today.

The Black Cats' skipper will miss out on the trip to Oakwell regardless of any decision, given he suffered concussion during the 1-1 draw at Adams Park, but Ross is hopeful that the suspension will be overturned in time for the midfielder's return.

"We will go down the appeals process," he said.

"I've accepted that the behaviour of our touchline area wasn't appropriate, but I suppose there's sometimes a balance as to what people are red-carded for and whether you think that is appropriate.

"There's a number of different circumstances. George would have missed tomorrow anyway, but we've looked at it and we're going through the proper process.

"We'll be respectful of whatever decision is made within it, but we just need clarity on it.

"Hopefully that will come this afternoon as that will obviously affect tomorrow as well."

There were fears among supporters that Honeyman would miss out on captaining the Black Cats at Wembley should he be forced to adhere to the suspension.

But Ross said the club are currently unsure on how long the academy graduate will be suspended for and whether it will apply to Checkatrade Trophy fixtures - and he is hopeful of an explanation today.

"The process of that is ongoing, so hopefully by late afternoon we'll have clarity on what exactly the situation will be," added Ross.

"Obviously we had a couple of issues earlier in the season with the competition, how it is viewed and how suspensions work in it.

"It highlighted some anomalies in the set-up of the competition and how it coincides with the games.

"I'm unsure as to whether that has been resolved or whether it has remained the same.

"We're just waiting for clarification over the next couple of hours."

The coming-together late on at Wycombe attracted a great deal of attention, but Ross believes the incident has been built-up to more than it was.

"I personally don't think it's that big of a deal," he admitted.

"I think we often make a much bigger deal of it than it is.

"I watch quite a lot of the Six Nations, because I like it as a sport, and I see fights in that quite a lot. It never creates many headlines.

"If you actually watch the footage properly, there's a lot of people trying to bring peace to the situation.

"However, when you put that many grown-ups close together, people get bumped around and it looks much worse than it is.

"For every one person that's being aggressive, there's probably six players trying to calm things down - but you don't see that."