Scotland coach Mark McGhee has revealed that he kicked on the door of Steven McLean after Motherwell’s Scottish Cup defeat from Inverness Caley Thistle.
McGhee lost the plot after Jordan Roberts beat Morgaro Gomis to a tussle in the Caley Thistle half. Roberts moved forward unchallenged into the Motherwell half then unleashed a stoppage time 30 yard drive into the net to kill off Motherwell’s cup dream.
Asked if he had spoken to McLean after the match McGhee said: “No, I kicked his door. We are absolutely gutted. How can I criticise the players? I can’t criticise them.
“We just keep doing what we are doing and eventually we will get a break and eventually a referee will give a good decision in our favour, or even a bad decision in our favour.”
“The boy has barged him down, we are a man down and the boy has gone and scored. It’s every week we are coming in and talking about the referee at the last point in the game.”
McGhee continued: “They are a difficult team to play against. Tactically I always feel Inverness and Celtic are the most difficult teams to play against because they play a different shape.
“You’ve got to take care of that third midfielder with them or they will batter you.
“We would have been out-passed, we would never have got the ball, we would have undermined our confidence, the crowd would have been on top of us from the beginning.
“We were disappointed to lose the first goal as we did, but we played our way back into it, we got the goal and I was quite satisfied to go up the road and take them on again.
“Gomis is barged in the back, he goes to ground and the boy runs through and scores. We are gutted. The referee is five yards away.”
Last month Greg Aitken was the target of McGhee’s anger after failing to send off Ali Crawford in a 3-3 draw with Hamilton Accies.
“I thought it was ludicrous that Crawford was still on the park,” the Motherwell boss said. “It was ridiculous, an absolutely ridiculous decision. Our boy was sent off for handball and that just compounds it. It was a shocking decision.”
No action was taken by the SFA against Gordon Strachan’s number two after the Hamilton match.