Craig Levein has hit out at ‘woeful’ VAR decision-making in St Johnstone’s loss to Dundee.
The Perth boss feels his side were on the wrong side of two major decisions in the weekend all-Tayside clash, the first when Dundee keeper Jon McCracken appeared to knee Saints striker Adama Sidibeh in the box and the second late in the game when McCracken spilled the ball over his own goal line under pressure from Ryan McGowan.
The first was not subject to a VAR check, while referee Iain Snedden was called to his monitor to review the second incident, only to stick with his on-field decision; awarding a free kick to Dundee.
St Johnstone have made their dissatisfaction with VAR known to the SFA already this season – and have received an apology over errors from referees’ chief Crawford Allan.
That being the case, Levein is of the opinion that a second apology would be worthless.
Nevertheless, he raised serious concerns over a continuing lack of consistency surrounding the use of VAR and the decision-making arising from it.
He said: “The most we’ll get is another apology if we complain.
“I’ll speak to Stan [Harris, St Johnstone chief executive] about what he wants to do because he was the one who did it last time.
“But see when you’ve apologised for something once before, it’s probably best you just don’t do it again!
“That’s exactly what’s happened and an apology will mean nothing, to be honest.
“I have to be careful what I say about it because you get into trouble, but I really do feel the amount of things that have happened and the consistency of decision-making is woeful.
“It’s almost like the more time they look at things the worse the decision is.
“Frustration was my main emotion after watching the game back.
“Without harping on, we were terribly hard done by with the two decisions in the game.
“The first one, and I don’t think it even went to VAR, was the goalkeeper kneeing Adama Sidibeh deliberately in the box.
“You do that anywhere else on the pitch and it’s a foul, but they didn’t even have a look at it, which I can’t understand at all.
Worth mentioning neither McCracken or Sidibeh were jumping at that incident.
McCracken raised his knee to make sure there was contact when Sidibeh was running past him after failing to get a long ball. pic.twitter.com/1DrSVBbuXv
— St Johnstone Analysis (@StAnalysis) March 31, 2024
“It should have been a penalty, there’s no doubt about that in my mind.
“And the second one, the goalkeeper didn’t have control of the ball when Gowser [Ryan McGowan] headed it home – that should have been a goal too.
“They say things even themselves out over a season so we’ll see whether that’s right or not.”
‘Shot ourselves in the foot’
VAR-aside, Levein felt his side’s performance was deserving of at least a point.
But the Saints boss did not hide from the errors that cost his team in the build-up to both Dundee goals.
“I have to be honest, some of it was our own doing – we needed to defend the cross better for the second goal,” he said.
“And while the first one was a mistake by Dimi [Dimitar Mitov], I can’t criticise him because he’s been so good for us all season and these things happen.
“I was pleased with the effort the players put in and with how we looked a bit more dangerous in an attacking sense.
“I would have loved to have come in after the game waxing lyrical about Adama’s performance and the quality of his goal.
“But we shot ourselves in the foot with the way we defended the second goal.
“Although we restricted Dundee to hardly any chances, we made mistakes and they punished us for them.
“At this juncture when you’re fighting for survival, it feels like you get punished more than you do in other situations.
“All we can do is keep working and keep fighting away.
“I like to think I’m honest with my interpretation of matches, I felt we deserved more.
“The players are not daft, they know they have been playing reasonably well. Training has been really good and the level of effort is there.
“I just hope we get what we deserve at some stage and things even themselves out.”
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