Chelsea will launch an appeal today against John Terry’s controversial sending-off against Manchester City, but the captain has little chance of being reinstated and able to play against Manchester United on Sunday.

It is understood that Mark Halsey, the referee, deemed Terry’s block on Jô, the City striker, to be serious foul play rather than a professional foul and he faces a three-match ban, ruling him out of matches against United, Stoke City and Aston Villa. The FA is unable to downgrade cards from red to yellow, so Chelsea must demonstrate that Terry should not have been booked to get the decision overturned, an unlikely proposition.

Luiz Felipe Scolari, the Chelsea manager, was philosophical about Terry’s dismissal on Saturday but anxious to point out that his players had not been disrespectful towards the referee in querying Halsey’s decision. Chelsea were charged with failing to control their players on three occasions last season and are keen to avoid further disciplinary problems.

“The referee is the man who has to take the decision and he takes that decision, wrong or right,” Scolari said. “I’m outside the pitch so it’s not my business, it’s his decision. This is what they are paid to do.

“They didn’t understand the decision of the referee and it is normal for some players to say, ‘What is this, what is that?’ – but with respect for the referee, not confronting the referee, not using bad words. They respect the decision of the referee.

“Chelsea players respect the words that the FA say to us that we need to follow and the word is respect.”

Frank Lampard was less restrained in his criticism, arguing that matches could be marred by multiple sendings-off if Halsey’s thinking was applied by other referees. “I don’t need to see the sending-off again, there were two players behind him [Terry],” Lampard said. “If you start giving out red cards like that you’ll have four or five a game. There was a similar one with Robbie Keane in the Liverpool game and it was a yellow card, a standard yellow card. Hopefully they’ll look at it again and make it a yellow card. It’s not a red card when there’s two men behind the ball. If not we could miss him for three games.

“It was just a block-off challenge. It happened at the end with Didier [Drogba] when there was a free kick given against [Richard] Dunne. If that’s the case he should have punished him the same as JT, but he didn’t.”

Chelsea will step up their efforts this week to sign midfield cover for Michael Essien, who is out for at least six months with anterior cruciate ligament damage. Miniero, the former Brazil player, is their top target and is available on a free transfer after leaving Hamburg in the summer.

“We’ve lost Essien for six months which is difficult when we play in four competitions,” Scolari said. “I can try [Juliano] Belletti and I have Paolo [Ferreira] who started his career as a midfielder.”