St Johnstone manager Craig Levein joked that referees should get their pay cut in half – because they’re only making half the decisions in a Premiership game.
Another two VAR penalty decisions went against the Perth side in their 3-0 defeat to Rangers.
Both came late in the contest after Mohamed Diamonde had put the new league leaders in front just before half-time.
The first looked to be a correct overrule, after Matthew MacDermid failed to spot Andy Considine had mistimed a sliding tackle on Dujon Sterling.
But the second spot-kick award was a shot blasted at Luke Robinson’s arm that the defender could do little about.
Levein had no issues with his team’s performance and application.
But he is becoming exasperated by the VAR decisions that are mounting up.
“I don’t know what the best rule is to have (for handball),” he said.
“But could we have one that applies to everybody?
“That would be nice.
“Supporters come along and pay their money.
“They have to sit for five minutes with a feeling of dread in their stomach but everybody knows what’s going to happen.
“The referee’s going to make whatever decisions has been made in the booth.
“The referees aren’t really refereeing the game anymore. Maybe they should just get half their money!
“I’ve seen a load of handballs recently. I really don’t know what’s going on just now.
“It’s quite depressing sitting here every week and talking about stuff that should be helping but isn’t.
“That’s VAR 8-0 up on us now.
“The lads are saying that the first one, they thought, was a penalty.
“The second one they didn’t that was their view on it. But it’s second hand information.”
Gap to the bottom three less
Saints are now eight points ahead of bottom of the table Livingston, with David Martindale’s men ending their winless drought on Saturday.
“Today’s game wasn’t one most people would have thought we’d win,” said Levein.
“I was pleased with the way we played for most of the game.
“At some point Livingston were going to pick up a win.
“If we apply ourselves next week as we did today, we’ll have a good chance of winning.”
Levein added: “We worked the system really well in the first half, shifting between a four and a five and a three.
“We restricted Rangers to very few opportunities.
“Other than the goal I can’t really remember an awful lot of stress in the first half at all.
“Listen, I am frustrated and feel for the boys because they have worked so, so hard.
“To have another couple of incidents in the game that have cost us is frustrating.
“I’m not saying we would have beaten Rangers but we performed the way we did in the first half then had to change it to try and get back in the game, which opened us up, and Rangers had most of the chances in the last 20 minutes.
“We didn’t lose the game just because of VAR today, but it certainly made life much more comfortable for Rangers and took some of our energy away after they were awarded a couple of goals.”
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