Motherwell boss Stuart Kettlewell says his side have been on the wrong end of several VAR decisions this season, and is adamant they should have had a penalty in their 4-3 win over Dundee United.
Steve Seddon went down under a challenge from Luca Stephenson just before half-time with the score at 3-1, but referee Nick Walsh didn’t award a penalty or go to look at the pitch-side monitor.
Kettlewell is so sure it should have been given that he expects a 5-0 outcome at this week’s Key Match Incident (KMI) review process.
But he does concede that communication between clubs and the referees department now overseen by Willie Colllum has been significantly improved.
He said: “I had a really good conversation with Willie on Monday, a short conversation, and it was a question from my side of things.
“There were probably three main incidents in our game. There was a question mark on our fourth goal, over whether it hit Apostolos Stamatelopoulos’ arm or not.
“From the pictures that I’ve seen it looks as if it hits him on the shirt-line, which is that defining factor.
“There’s the penalty for Dundee United that makes it 1-1, and the penalty that I believe we should have had right on the stroke of half-time that would have given us the opportunity of making it 4-1.
“I think we all know the relevance and the significance of that.
“It was a good conversation, I said to Willie that it stays in-house, but the real simple fact that I would be prepared to put on it is that we saw the incidents in the same way.”
Kettlewell added: “I felt it was as clear a penalty as you’re going to see, on Saturday, and I still think that’s the case.
“I think it’s one that we’ve missed, would be my view. It doesn’t have an impact on the game, but those are the ones in those tight games…
“I sat two weeks ago in a meeting with many of the clubs, with Willie, his staff and officials, and it was an open conversation, it wasn’t a dictatorship to say ‘this is how it’s going to be, this is what we see and there is no other thought process’.
“There has very much been an angle leaning towards the clubs as to ‘what do you feel on some of the contentious decisions’.
“It still splits the room, and let’s see at the end of this week when the KMI report comes out, but to relate it back to the Steve Seddon incident, which I’m sure will be in there, I would be stunned if that doesn’t come out as a 5-0 in favour of it should have been a penalty kick.
“What you’ll see, moving forward, is that is potentially an incident that will be used as training.
“We concede a goal, we make a mistake, we go and train and try to improve through the week, and I think it’s the same for the officials.
“If we’re seeing that type of scenario this should be the outcome that we’re looking at, at the end of that.
“Again, not a stick to beat anybody over the head with,, but if that type of thing happens, if you look at the contact on Seddon, in comparison with the contact on Louis Moult, it’s a completely different thing.”
Kettlewell says it has been agreed that Motherwell should have had a few decisions this season that weren’t given in their favour.
He said: ”We’re told we should have had one against Ross County at 0-0, I spoke about that. The game should have been stopped against Dundee at 1-1.
“As the season goes on you hope some of those decisions go in your favour – you’ll need to get them at times – and when I say that I mean ‘try to get to as many of the right outcome as we possibly can’.
“I thought we started really well [this season with VAR], a large number of decisions were pretty much correct, and we were making real strides on that front.
“From a personal point of view I don’t think that has been great, of late, because I’ve mentioned three major incidents in games that can have a defining factor in what the outcome is.
“Again, what we end up doing in this is we break up into our own fight. We end up saying ‘Motherwell feel they should have had three decisions in five games’ that would have had an impact.
“I don’t feel it has just been as consistent as it was at the start of the season, but I need to go on record to say that for me the transparency and communication has dramatically improved.
“We’re not trying to throw anybody under the bus, but I feel that we have to get to that end fact. What is the right call, the right outcome?”