Neil Lennon has claimed that Hibs were up against 12 men in their 4-2 defeat from Celtic.
Referee Don Robertson was the target of the Hibs bosses anger with a first half foul from Filip Benkovic the reason for his outburst.
Scott Brown picked up a booking in the first minute but Lennon believes that the on loan Leicester City defender should have been red carded.
“It’s very difficult when you are playing against 12 men it is very difficult,” he told the post match media conference. “I thought that the referee was abysmal.
“How Benkovic doesn’t get a yellow card and (Darren) McGregor does is beyond me. He’s taken Hyndman completely out of the game and we get a free kick on the edge of the box, no yellow card.
“He says that it’s not going near the goal, that doesn’t matter. The intent was just to take the player out. We got flagged for offside from a defensive tackle when we were breaking, anyway.
“The Benkovic one for me is borderline red, never mind a yellow and he gets nothing. He just took Hyndman completely out, he knew what he was doing. There was no intent to play the ball, it baffles me that there was no yellow card, I’m not looking to get players sent off, I just want the referee to do his job properly.”
Celtic won the match 4-2 to move into second place in the table with Hibs drifting back to fifth due to wins for Livingston and Kilmarnock.
It was an entertaining game with little in the way of controversy although Stevie Mallan was fortunate to escape without a card for a dangerous foul from behind on Olivier Ntcham.
Towards the end of the match there was an exchange between the two two management teams with Lennon angered by the way it was brought up in the media conference.
REPORTER: There seemed to be a wee bit of anger between the dug outs towards the end?
LENNON: What did Brendan say about it? Did you ask him? Why are you asking me then?
REPORTER: You seemed to be involved in it
LENNON: Why didn’t you ask Brendan about it?
REPORTER: Brendan didn’t seem to be involved in it
LENNON: I wasn’t involved in anything
REPORTER 2: Was it Gary (Parker, Hibs assistant) and Chris Davies?
LENNON: We’ll keep this to ourselves. You are asking me a question that you didn’t ask the Celtic manager, their bench was involved, my bench was involved yet you didn’t ask him the question did you, did you but you’re asking me?
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