Livi gaffer Gary calls for Holt to referee gaffes
Livingston gaffer Gary Holt last night blasted ropey referee Greig Aitken, claiming that the official’s “embarrassing” decision not to award his side a spot-kick cost them three points.
Holt insisted that the game-changing gaffe was the pivotal moment of the match.
“It’s a stonewall penalty at a crucial point in the game,” he said. “We’ve talked about how to make [standards] better but if they can’t get decisions right then what chance have you got?
“We had a foothold in the game and were scrapping and battling for every first, second and third ball. We got a chance in their box and, from two yards away, for the referee to book him for diving is beyond me.
“When you see it again then it’s pretty embarrassing. I don’t care so much about the booking but it’s the fact it’s a stonewall penalty.
“That’s the fundamentals of the game – it wasn’t simulation. The boy ran clean through him because he’d given the ball away and tried to rectify it by lunging in.
“If we’d scored it would have given us something to hang on to. The players are hurt because the official cost us.”
The frustrated manager added: “If you have a chance to go 2-1 up then it deflates Dundee because they’d thrown everything at us and weren’t really troubling us.
“Liam didn’t have a save to make and it’s a stonewall penalty. I don’t tell my players to go down and I don’t think any of them have ever dived.
“I didn’t speak to the ref because I don’t have enough money to argue with them. I’d say things in the heat of the moment that might get me into trouble.
“He’s made a howler in my eyes and, hopefully, we get some of them back over the season.”
Dundee manager Jim McIntyre, who had yet to see a definitive replay of the incident, admitted that his initial reaction was that a penalty should have been given, although Curran had told him that it would have been soft.
“I think we deserved the win – some of our stuff in the first half was really good but we were wasteful in front of goal,” he said.