Seething Scottish Premiership boss accuses VAR of encouraging playacting after 'ridiculous' decision
Penalty awarded for “nothing” incident, insists frustrated manager
Jim Goodwin doubled down on his criticism of the penalty decision which went against Dundee United in Saturday’s 2-0 defeat at Motherwell and claimed no one in football is enjoying how the game is being officiated.
Referee Nick Walsh was summoned to the VAR monitor after Tawanda Maswanhise went to ground after appearing to be struck by Vicko Sevelj’s elbow late in the first half of thePremiership game at Fir Park.
Sevelj was booked and the Motherwell striker scored the resulting spot-kick then added his 21st goal of the season early in the second half.
Looking ahead to the home game against St Mirren on Tuesday night, United boss Goodwin, who called the decision “ridiculous” straight after the game, was no less scathing having had time to reflect.
He said: “We’ve been talking about the same things over and over again on a regular basis throughout the course of the season.
“So, there’s frustration across the board with managers, players, and even with supporters.
“I don’t think there’s anybody out there at the moment enjoying how the games are being refereed, whether it’s on the pitch by the officials themselves or in the VAR studio in Glasgow.
“I just think there’s some incidents in games where VAR just doesn’t need to get involved. And that one on Saturday for me, it was a nothing.
“There was no force in what Vicko Sevelj has done. He’s just trying to shake the player off.
“What the VAR doesn’t show is the previous six or seven seconds prior to that, where Maswanhise’s pulling and dragging at Sevelj, that’s where the reaction comes from.
“But anyway, regardless of that, if it was up the other end, I wouldn’t want a penalty given to my players for that type of thing.
“I think we’re actually encouraging players now to just go down and feign injury and give the VAR guys something to look at because when they watch these incidents back and they slow it down and they freeze-frame it, sometimes they can look a whole lot worse than actually at the time.
“And so I stand by what I said. I don’t think it’s a penalty kick. I think it was a really important moment in the match. And away to Motherwell is a difficult enough game as it is without those types of decisions going against you.”
With five games to go before the split, United are 12 points behind sixth-placed Falkirk with a game in hand over the Bairns. However, Goodwin will not give up hope of a top-half finish.
He said: “Obviously, the results going the way they did at the weekend…the gap has widened again.
“So we’re not stupid enough to think that it’s going to be easy or straightforward and Falkirk will only need to pick up another win out of the next four games and they’ve secured it.
“But, while it’s mathematically still possible, we’ll keep fighting.”
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