Motherwell boss Stuart Kettlewell insists the decision to show Liam Gordon a red card in stoppage time of their 3-0 defeat to Celtic was “so harsh” and the club will mull over appealing it.
The defender saw his yellow card for a late tackle on Adam Idah upgraded from yellow to red after a VAR check showed he caught the Hoops striker on the ankle with his studs.
It will rule Gordon out of the Steelmen’s next two league games against Dundee United on Wednesday night and his former club St Johnstone on November 9 – but not next Sunday’s League Cup semi-final against Rangers at Hampden.
But Kettlewell feels referee David Dickinson got the call right in the first instance.
He said: “I am a bit frustrated by it. We’ll all have a view on it when we analyse it and look back on it. I just feel it is so harsh to give the red card. The referee has a look at it and he can see that big Liam has made contact, but the first thing you start to see on the screen is still images and it looks bad, of course.
“I spoke to the referee after it, really calmly, to ask what he saw in the challenge.
“He spoke about ‘hinging’ the players’ ankle, but my counter argument would be that we are talking about Liam being at full stretch at that point and without any real force whatsoever, just trying to get a toe end on the ball.
“I acknowledge that he doesn’t get that toe-end on the ball – which I thought he did at the time – but I don’t think he has come in with any kind of reckless intent or to try and injure the Celtic player.
“I think the referee got it right at the time, when he awards a foul and gives a yellow card. I don’t know how many times we have to look at it to try and find a way that it is a red card.
“A number of people will think it is a red card but I’m just giving my side of it. If that tackle was on one of my players, am I screaming and shouting for a red card? Absolutely not.”
Asked if he would appeal it, he added: “We’ll go away and have a conversation. I’m not going to throw out decisions about appeals or anything like that. I will speak to our chief executive Brian Caldwell and have a conversation in-house about what impact the decision has.
“I’m a bit emotional at this stage after a game of football so we’ll sit on it for the next few hours.”
The Steelmen had a bright start at Fir Park with Lennon Miller twice hitting the woodwork, first smacking the post after they pounced on an error by Paulo Bernardo and then hitting the crossbar with a 25-yard free-kick.
However, Luke McCowan broke the deadlock in 27 minutes when he drilled home from the edge of the box. Celtic then sealed a comfortable win with Alistair Johnston and Idah netting in the second half before Gordon’s dismissal compounded their misery.
And Kettlewell was left ruing those two early chances to really put pressure on Celtic.
He added: “I thought we started the game incredibly well and I thought we were excellent for the quarter of the game, hit the woodwork a couple of times and looked pretty comfortable in the game, it has to be said.
“Celtic then got the goal, which I thought was a bit fortuitous. I know you make your own luck in this game, but I thought there was a bit of a ricochet for him to wriggle through and he finishes it well.
“I felt we were still in a place that we needed to be at that stage, but the second goal is a killer blow.
“You start to look at the millions of pounds of quality that starts to come off their bench. You can see in the dying embers of the game, how much the game is open and the quality they have to pick us off.
“We have to capitalize on those chances we have when they come along. I think we did well when they came along to carve them out.
“I thought Lennon was excellent again today, both with and without the ball, he showed a level of composure when he had it and his discipline out of position was terrific.
“But I said to the players afterwards that I have been involved in a lot of games against Celtic where they have created a lot more and had far greater dominance against teams I have been involved with as a player and a coach, and come out with a far better result.
“So it is a bitter pill to swallow that, in stages of the game, we set out what we wanted to do. But fair play to them, they deserved to win it and they were clinical.”