We woz robbed: McCann’s fury at referee Muir
Neil McCann last night insisted his side were “robbed” by “poor officiating” as Motherwell dumped Dundee.
The Dark Blues’ boss felt Steelmen star Craig Tanner’s first-half strike was offside.
But he was even more annoyed when whistler Alan Muir failed to award an injury time penalty over an alleged handball by Well defender Cedric Kipre.
McCann said: “It’s a stonewaller. It’s difficult for a manager to hold that anger in.
“I’ve gone in to see Alan and asked him why it wasn’t a penalty.
“He said he spoke to his assistant who said it did hit his arm, but his arm was in against his body.
“It wasn’t. He came out like a keeper with his knee out and his arms up.
“So if it has hit him in the arm how is it not a penalty?
“That would have given us a chance to get the equaliser.
“And we showed last week we don’t need a lot of time to get a winner. We’ve been robbed.”
Pushed on his reaction to the referee’s explanation, he said: “What I said to him was, ‘You’re confirming that it hit his hand, and both hands were in against his body?’
“When you watch it, you’ll see it isn’t. That, to me, is very, very poor officiating.”
Dundee did everything but score after bossing the Well in the second-half.
It left McCann’s side eight points off the top six – a deficit he now admits will be tough to make up with just five games until the split.
“It’s going to be difficult now,” he said. “I’m a realist, I’m not a fantasist.
“Motherwell have stretched their gap on us, Kilmarnock got another point ahead of us.
“In that respect it’s going to be difficult, but you don’t just roll over and accept it. We’ll go to Celtic Park and try to get a result.
“I expect Celtic to be coming out firing because maybe they’re hurting from going out of Europe and they’ll be looking try to get their league campaign back in order.
“But we should have taken something last time at Celtic Park and we’ll look to go and do the same again.