DUNDEE UNITED manager Micky Mellon has criticised the match officials after his side’s loss to Hibernian in the Scottish Cup semi-final.
Mellon was furious that Hibs’ second goal was allowed to stand, with striker Christian Doidge picking the ball up in an offside position before slotting home.
The United manager also hit out at referee Bobby Madden for failing to keep a handle on the Hibs players as they ran the clock down late in the game, but it was the failure of the assistant referee to raise his flag at the second goal that most frustrated him.
“You've got to get them right,” Mellon said.
“They strut about all afternoon, don't take control of the time-wasting or the gamesmanship. You expect that to be dealt with by the ref. He never did that all day but you've got to be careful what you say because you get yourself into trouble and I'm not prepared to do that.
“But at 1-0 you're still very much in the game, you know you're going to get into a time in the game when it becomes tense, and if you can take the game into that tense place you'll get an opportunity to maybe get that equaliser that takes the game into a different stage.
“Listen, I have to be honest and say Hibs were worthy of going to the final, but those wee moments have to go your way and you expect them to get dealt with better.”
Despite the cup exit, Mellon is satisfied with United’s season, with the Terrors securing safety with ease in their first campaign back in the top flight.
“They came into the Premiership to grow and build forward again and we knew they were good players,” he said.
“We want to keep it moving forward and we go away from this now a season better in terms of experience.
“Games like Saturday’s can only help us in moving the club forward. That’s what we’ll try to do.
“These boys have played a lot of Championship football and to come in and get to a major semi-final and so comfortably stay up is a massive step forward for us.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here