I used to think Lorenzo Amoruso wanted a McManus Hibs shirt for his living room wall.
The former Rangers hero was an absolute master of the penalty box grapple, a typical Italian defender who would have such a tight hold of your strip at set-pieces you could hear the stitching start to rip. He’d make sure he was wrong side of the referee and was so clever about it. That was the art of defending back then. Big Amo wouldn’t last a minute in the VAR world we live in now. Certainly not if Colin Steven and Greg Aitken were involved.
The referee, Steven, and his video assistant, Aitken, cost Hibs two massive points in Saturday’s draw with Dundee United at Easter Road. They had an absolute shocker. To penalise Mykola Kukharevych for holding Emmanuel Adegboyega’s shirt in the 89th minute when the ball was nowhere near the players was ridiculous.
The fact Steven was sent to the monitor by Aitken was bad enough. That it took him over three minutes to come to the decision to award a penalty was outrageous. He was clearly looking to find something that wasn’t there. No Dundee United player claimed for it. The key point here is the two players were nowhere near affecting play.
But if that’s bad, then what happened in injury time is incomprehensible when Warren O’Hora was the victim of the exact same infringement – and nothing was given. Don’t get me wrong, neither are penalties. But if Steven and Aitken reckon the first is then they absolutely have to give the second.
Hibs have been done by a shocking couple of minutes of officiating and denied a morale-boosting win that would have lifted them to 10th. Again it adds to the pressure David Gray is under. To rub salt in the wounds, big Kukharevych is now suspended due to the second yellow card that came with the penalty decision.
I look forward to hearing the VAR review panel’s thoughts on the two incidents tomorrow. The SFA’s new VAR chief Martin Atkinson will have studied them and he needs to make an example of this to officials. Hopefully he and Willie Collum get the refs and VARs together and tell them these incidents are not penalties.
Not if they aren’t affecting the game, not if nobody is being thrown to the ground. Otherwise you will end up seeing five or six penalties in every game.
Listen, there’s always a little pulling, tugging and scrimmaging at set-plays. It’s just natural in the fight to score and not concede, especially at that stage of the game.
As long as it’s not excessive and nobody is being pulled away from the ball then there’s nothing wrong with it. And that’s coming from an ex-striker. You’ve got to try to get a yard on your man, whether you are the defender or the striker.
It’s no different to a midfielder trying to get away from his marker in the middle of the park. There’s always going to be an element of physical contact.
So I totally understood Gray’s anger at the end of the game on Saturday. He just can’t catch a break at the minute but Hibs deserved to win the game.
They now face St Mirren at home this weekend with a striker crisis if Dwight Gayle isn’t fit. Kuharevich is suspended and Kieron Bowie is still injured, which is a real shame.
They could look at Elie Youan though the middle – unless he’s p***ed the manager off with his latest social media activity. I saw he’d put three pictures of himself and Lee Johnson on Instagram the other day after being dropped to the bench against United.
I’m not sure what that is all about but all it does is feed the gossipmongers. When you’re bottom of the league and not had a particularly good season, then you should avoid social media at all costs.
Get your head down, improve your performances and start winning games. Otherwise you’re making yourself a target for the fans. I’m on repeat now when I say Hibs really need to win this weekend.
They’ve thrown away so many points in the last few minutes of games lately that fans will be pulling their hats over their eyes at 85 minutes. Panic must set in among the players every time they go into the final stages of a game level or even a goal ahead.
I’ve been there. It’s like a scar that’s hard to get rid of. It can’t be allowed to go on.
If they can’t get themselves a two-goal cushion, then Hibs need to see one of these games out. It needs to happen against the Buddies.
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