David Gray can't catch a break at Easter Road but dodgy VAR calls are no excuse for Hibs' shortcomings - Tam McManus

I used to think Lorenzo Amoruso wanted a McManus Hibs shirt for his living room wall.

The former Rangers hero was an absolute master of the penalty box grapple, a typical Italian defender who would have such a tight hold of your strip at set-pieces you could hear the stitching start to rip. He’d make sure he was wrong side of the referee and was so clever about it. That was the art of defending back then. Big Amo wouldn’t last a minute in the VAR world we live in now. Certainly not if Colin Steven and Greg Aitken were involved.

The referee, Steven, and his video assistant, Aitken, cost Hibs two massive points in Saturday’s draw with Dundee United at Easter Road. They had an absolute shocker. To penalise Mykola Kukharevych for holding Emmanuel Adegboyega’s shirt in the 89th minute when the ball was nowhere near the players was ridiculous.

The fact Steven was sent to the monitor by Aitken was bad enough. That it took him over three minutes to come to the decision to award a penalty was outrageous. He was clearly looking to find something that wasn’t there. No Dundee United player claimed for it. The key point here is the two players were nowhere near affecting play.

But if that’s bad, then what happened in injury time is incomprehensible when Warren O’Hora was the victim of the exact same infringement – and nothing was given. Don’t get me wrong, neither are penalties. But if Steven and Aitken reckon the first is then they absolutely have to give the second.

Hibs have been done by a shocking couple of minutes of officiating and denied a morale-boosting win that would have lifted them to 10th. Again it adds to the pressure David Gray is under. To rub salt in the wounds, big Kukharevych is now suspended due to the second