Michael Beale has accused the officials of inconsistency by calling the Morelos foul out as a bad error while alleging other moments didn’t get the same scrutiny.
The manager, who believes Rangers were at least worthy of a draw (comforting words), spoke after the 90 minutes and explained a lack of ‘pickiness’ among the officials.
He said:
“If you look at Alfredo Morelos you look at the number on the back of his shirt, why’s their guy not trying to play the ball? Only Alfredo’s trying to play the ball, they’ve both got a hold of each other but Alfredo’s number’s twisted around his back, I think it’s a goal. I think it’s a soft one, if we don’t get that one then when Ben Davies heads the ball against Jota it’s hit his arm, it’s not outside his body it’s hit his arm so if we’re so picky on one moment I think we need to be as picky on the other one.”
And in fairness while we couldn’t quite make out the full incident Beale refers to his point stands – if officials are going to be ‘anal’ about one ridiculous decision against Rangers which costs Rangers a goal, why are they not applying the same strictness elsewhere on the pitch too?
Was Davies’ incident a penalty? If it hits his arm, or even comes close, then by the logic of the fussiness over Morelos, then yes, it has to be.
Or, in reality, did the officials just absolutely screw up the Morelos call?
Yes, yes they did.
Beale is right, if you’re going to be picky in one place it has to be across the board, because it seems like they’ve seen an infringement against Morelos that clearly wasn’t there.
So Beale seems to have potentially made one up himself to make a point.
The problem isn’t with Davies, or Morelos, or even Johnston – it’s with the officials who absolutely screwed up and by making a very, very bad call that every sane human (aside Johnston himself, obviously) knew was wrong, that they made a precedent and a rod for their own back.
All they had to do was get that one right and we wouldn’t be forensically examining other nonsense as well.