Houston infuriated by Brines’ ‘on another day’ explanation

Chief football writer

Monday 2 May 2011

Peter Houston, the Dundee United manager, said he intended to contact the Scottish Football Association's head of refereeing last night about how Iain Brines handled the game at Parkhead.

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michael grant

Frustrated Houston had sought out Brines at full-time to ask why his player, Jon Daly, was booked for a sliding tackle on Charlie Mulgrew while Celtic’s Biram Kayal escaped without punishment for a similar challenge on Craig Conway early in the match.

Houston claimed to have been bewildered when Brines told him that “on another day” Kayal would have been booked. Brines then walked away as he sought a fuller explanation, he said.“I was disappointed with the referee,” said Houston. “I can’t understand why Conway is taken out by Kayal and he doesn’t get booked. It was a stonewall yellow card. Late in the game, Jon Daly does exactly the same thing to Charlie Mulgrew and is booked. I asked the ref for an explanation in the tunnel and he said ‘on another day it would have been a booking’.“What is all that about? What does that mean? I asked for a further explanation but he just walked away. By this stage I was ranting and I lost my composure. I am completely baffled why he said what he did. That’s why I am going to telephone John Fleming [the SFA head of referee development] because I need to speak to him.“This is the ref who books Paul Dixon against Motherwell for diving in the box when TV replays clearly show it was a penalty. I want clarification on what ‘days’ you get a yellow card for that and what ‘days’ you don’t.”Houston, however, had no complaint about Celtic taking the three points. “I think that’s our worst defensive performance of the season,” he admitted. “Without taking anything away from them, Celtic got their goals too easily. If you defend like that against a good team like Celtic then they will punish you and that’s exactly what they did. We were down 2-0 before we started believing and that’s disappointing.”United are eight points behind third-placed Hearts, but Houston hoped the Edinburgh club would lose twice to the Old Firm, allowing United to claw them back if they win their own games. “I’d love to be in a situation with a winner-takes-all at Tannadice between us on the last day.”

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Houston infuriated by Brines’ ‘on another day’ explanation

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