'100% a goal' - Hibs boss Lee Johnson rages at officials over disallowed goal against Dundee United

Hibs manager Lee Johnson blasted the match officials after watching his side lose 1-0 to Dundee United at Tannadice – insisting that Mykola Kukharevych’s disallowed strike was ‘100 per cent a goal’.

The Ukrainian thought he’d cancelled out Aziz Behich’s 11th-minute opener on 34 minutes but referee Euan Anderson chalked it off for an unspecified infringement.

Speaking after the match Johnson took aim at the whistler and his assistants.

“I have really mixed emotions, there’s a bit of anger in there; anger with the officials for their performance,” he said.

“It is one hundred percent a goal. The far side linesman was 150 per cent sure – that was what I was told – that it was a shove by Élie Youan before the goal. Unbelievable.”

The Easter Road boss voiced his support for the early introduction of VAR, which is set to be brought into the Scottish game this season, and felt Tony Watt was lucky to stay on the park.

“He should have been sent off and booked three times but we’ll have to leave that for the SFA.”

Hibs were guilty of profligacy in front of goal with Kukharevych and Martin Boyle the main offenders, while Dundee United goalkeeper Carljohan Eriksson bailed his team-mates out on several occasions with a string of fine saves.

Hibs manager Lee Johnson has words with the fourth official at Tannadice

“It was a night of fantastic goalkeeping and poor finishing, depending how you look at it,” Johnson continued.

"Some of our play was superb. We had a lot of goalscorers on the pitch who couldn’t score goals and you would expect us to take two or three of those chances at least.

“If you play that game 100 times, we win 65, draw 15 and lose the rest."

Johnson makes heavy use of data and analytics in his coaching and rued the fact that, despite watching his team come back on previous occasions after losing an early goal, they were unable to do so after Behich’s 11th-minute strike.

“I can’t be too displeased with the performance, on the data – percentile-wise it was a win, although in the end it wasn’t,” he explained.

“But I was disappointed with the goal. We have given away too many first goals this season.

“Often we have come back, shown character, but we just couldn’t get the ball in the net.”