Players are often blinkered, in the heat of the moment, when it comes to refereeing decisions but for Tommie Hoban of Aberdeen to claim that Rangers players “influenced” the referee to get their way is some stretch.
Speaking to The Daily Record, Hoban is far from impartial when discussing key decisions from Rangers 2-1 win and, incredulously, barely thought that Curtis Main’s chest high lunge on Borna Barisic worthy of a free-kick:
“The one with Main, I didn’t think there was much in it at all. It might have been a foul. All that stuff is a bit unnecessary really.
“People are always going to try to influence the ref and whether they did or not is open to debate.
“Even the penalty, it probably was a penalty but for it to be a red card as well I thought was harsh.
“He wasn’t trying to bring him down, it was just a coming together.”
Again, in a similar vein to Michael Stewart on Sportscene, the laws are pretty clear when it comes to penalty kicks and red cards, that his own manager accepted the decision immediately after the game says it all, just because it is harsh, it doesn’t mean that John Beaton was wrong.
Aberdeen were lucky to escape with their goal difference not taking a bigger battering on Sunday and they really should have been on the wrong end of a doing – for want of a more technical term – if Hoban was right, surely Beaton would have sent Main off as well?
Should Curtis Main have seen red?
Yes
No
As always, any big decisions that benefit Rangers will be questioned and have the IFAB encouraged to re-write laws, all we can do is keep on picking up three points and move onto the next game.