Livingston boss David Martindale hit out at the officials following his side’s 3-0 home loss to Rangers.
The gaffer questioned the decisions that led directly to the Gers’ first two goals - a first-half penalty converted by James Tavernier following a lengthy VAR check and a 78th minute free-kick curled home by the same player with Lions midfielder Stephane Omeonga sent-off in the incident.
Kemar Roofe bundled home a late third for the away side but the Lions were well in the contest prior to their late red card.
But Martindale was left furious by referee David Dickinson’s judgement with James Penrice being punished for a shirt pull on Alfredo Morelos for the spot-kick and Omeonga’s dismissal.
He said: “I don’t think it’s a penalty, it’s very soft. The momentum of Morelos’ body shape didn’t change. I think it was very harsh. It happens to Joel Nouble every day of the week, all over the park, and we don’t seem to get free-kicks or penalties.
“There would be 20 penalties a game awarded for someone having a hold of the opposition player’s shirt. I don’t think there’s a lot in it. There’s got to be some argument for the force used to pull the shirt. I’ll concede that he had his jersey but I don’t think there was any force.”
As for the red card incident, he commented: “It’s a fantastic free-kick, but Roofe’s contact is on Stephane originally. I don’t think that it’s a yellow card even if Stephane made the first contact which I don’t think he did.
“At 1-0, I don’t think our goalkeeper had a lot to do — McGregor didn’t have a lot to do either — but we were well in the match and we could have got something from the game.”
Livi went into the clash hoping to put behind them their abysmal display the previous week in exiting the Scottish Cup at the hands of Inverness and for large spells gave as good as they got against the Ibrox men.
The Gers had the ball in the net on 10 minutes when Fashion Sakala neatly turned home a Morelos cross but the striker was flagged for offside before the hosts gave them a helping hand as Penrice’s shirt pull led to Tavernier sending Shamal George the wrong way from the spot.
Chances were few and far between with Livi able to get into the half-time interval with no further damage.
They had George to thank for not being further behind just three minutes after the restart, though, when he did well to prevent Sakala from beating him at the near post.
Martindale’s side enjoyed much more of the ball than usual against either of the Glasgow giants but offered little when they had it. Stephen Kelly’s tame strike from distance on the hour mark was their first shot on goal but offered no threat to Allan McGregor.
The midfielder then fluffed his lines at the back post five minutes late as the Lions enjoyed their best spell of the contest.
The former Rangers man was unmarked when found by Nicky Devlin but screwed his strike wide before the hosts rode their luck twice in quick succession.
Ryan Kent should have done better when one-on-one with George before Roofe almost made an immediate impact from the bench when dragging his strike narrowly wide.
With the clash seeing set for a cracking finish it was suddenly all over with 12 minutes remaining as Omeonga was shown a harsh second yellow for a foul on the edge of the box with set-piece master Tavernier duly doubling the Gers’ lead from the resulting free-kick before Roofe’s late third as Livi fell into the sixth place.
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