The decision by the panel to reject the club's appeal for the red card handed out to Petkovic during Tuesday night's FFA Cup defeat to Adelaide has not gone down well at Sydney, who appear to have been given tacit support by the FFA – who suspended the referee in question, Ben Williams.

Despite several clubs appealing red cards in recent years on the "obvious error" clause, they have been persistently rejected on the legal theory that if there was any plausible reason for a card – be it red or yellow – the initial decision stands.

As the A-League regulations have granted complete autonomy to the panel, which is independent of the governing body, their decisions are final, leaving Arnold bewildered and calling for a change to the panel's three members: ex-referee Simon Micallef, ex-player Alan Davidson and Con Diomis (who was filling in for lawyer Alan Contini).

"The fact that Williams has been stood down tells the story. But we've been punished twice for it and I think it's time we looked at who is on the match review panel board," Arnold said at training on Thursday morning. "Maybe they've been there too long and are out of touch with the game. It's been the same people. They have been there four years. Maybe they need to look at that."

The call is somewhat surprising given Arnold is good friends with Davidson, the pair being two of the mainstays of the Socceroos during the 1980s.

Football Federation Australia's head of referees, Ben Wilson, has been a staunch defender of his staff in recent times but phoned Arnold to register his sympathy – although Arnold declined to say what he said in response.

"I spoke to Ben Wilson and he was apologetic for the referee's performance but it wasn't a very nice phone call," Arnold said. "The most disappointing thing that's really bad is that we heard through the media that Nikola has been suspended.

"How does it go to the media before the coaching staff of the club find out? But that's history now and we need to move on and look at Brisbane Roar."

The bad news was compounded by the results of a scan on fellow defender Matthew Jurman, who has been ruled out for six weeks. Jurman tore his meniscus during the warm-up before the 3-1 defeat to Adelaide, with his place taken in the starting line-up by Hagi Gligor.

With Petkovic and Jurman out of action already, there was a further scare at training when Sasa Ognenovski hobbled off midway through the session. However, Arnold later confirmed the imposing centre-half would be fine to play.

Ognenovski is likely to partner Sebastian Ryall in the heart of defence, opening up a place for Pedj Bojic to start his first league match of the season. He started in the FFA Cup match on Tuesday, as did Ali Abbas, who will begin at left-back.

Winless after two matches, questions are being asked about whether the Roar still have the hunger to compete after winning three of the past four championships.

"I still think they're a very good football team and that they're the benchmark," Arnold said. "I analysed the Perth game last week and they're nearly back where they were last year. They've still got Thomas Broich, Jade North and Matt Smith and some good youngsters coming through.

"It's going to be a really tough challenge because they've lost their first two games, they'll be hurting and will be wanting to give their home fans something to cheer about."

The match will be the Sky Blues' third in six days. Arnold admitted they were "not really" ready for such a hectic workload so early in the campaign.

"We're not in charge of the scheduling and it's been a short turnaround," he said. "For those who played 120 minutes on Tuesday night, the next 24 hours will be vital in their recovery."