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Andy Halliday has demolished Dermot Gallagher’s opinion on the Rangers penalty decision and then fired back at Derek McInnes over the Kilmarnock goal.
The Killie boss was furious after his side lost 3-1 at Ibrox on Saturday (4 March) because Willie Collum had not awarded a penalty for a foul by Allan McGregor, but even he had admitted that Ryan Alebiosu had hit the ball with his arm for the spot kick awarded to the home side after a VAR review.
However, Hearts man Halliday wasn’t taking any prisoners when he pointed out that McInnes had neglected to mention the foul on Connor Goldson that led to Jeriel Dorsett’s consolation, have already completely dismissed Sky Sports’ former Premier League referee Gallagher for his view that the Rangers penalty was incorrect, saying: “Dermot Gallagher? Who cares? Genuinely, who cares what he says?”
Halliday continued on Clyde 1 Superscoreboard, as per Football Scotland: “In terms of the Rangers game, I don’t think it’s conclusive enough on the handball but for me it looked like a handball.
“I think Connor Goldson is a foul for Kilmarnock’s goal – which Derek McInnes didn’t mention after the game!
“I don’t think there’s a debate about that. You can’t jump on somebody’s shoulders and have two hands on somebody’s shoulders, not allowing them to jump to compete for the ball.”
Evened out
Collum appears to have managed the impressive achievement of making a set of decisions that left everybody unhappy one way or another on Saturday.
Frankly, McInnes had a point with the McGregor foul which Rangers were lucky to get away with, but nobody on the Light Blues side bothered to make a big song and dance about their opponents’ goal in the same way.
Ash Taylor had both hands on Goldson’s shoulders, preventing the Bears defender from getting off the ground, before he headed back across for Dorsett to nod in ahead of McGregor’s weak attempt at a save.
The way Rangers were playing at that point they probably deserved to concede one considering how slack and complacent they were when coming out for the second half.
But while everyone likes to be heard when it comes to penalties at Ibrox, and McInnes was vocal about the “bizarre” decision not to give a penalty to his side, Collum or the VAR should have been able to see the foul on Goldson and yet everyone largely let that slide until Halliday spoke up.
To give McInnes some credit, his reaction to the Light Blues penalty against Alebiosu, via the Daily Record, was: “I had no complaints about Rangers’ penalty. It seemed to take an eternity to get to the decision but I do think it’s come off Ryan’s arm.”
So what Gallagher, Rob Wotton, Sue Smith and Stephen Warnock were all looking at in the Sky Sports studio when they confidently all decided the ball had come off the Kilmarnock man’s chest is a mystery.
You may be able to argue about the ‘t-shirt line’ but the image from BBC Sportscene on Saturday night, where Neil McCann said it “certainly” hit his arm seems to prove the view from London nonsense.
VAR frequently allows officials to let proceedings to descend into farce, but with the Gers penalty it worked well, albeit slowly, and still some people are outraged, but after those in charge had done their job on that incident they quickly ruined it by being nowhere to be found as Goldson was held down soon after.
In other Rangers news, Ross Wilson and Stewart Robertson have nowhere to hide now that their human shield has faltered.