Derek McInnes rages at incident during Hibs vs Kilmarnock as boss admits 'I despair' after red card decision

Kilmarnock boss Derek McInnes was left aghast at a red card for Danny Armstrong in Hibs’ 1-0 win over his Killie side.

David Gray’s hosts built on derby day success over Hearts by making it a fourth Premiership win on the spin in their bid to crack the top six. Nectar Triantis scored the only goal of the game as Hibs now look to a clash with St Johnstone in Perth on January 2nd.

Armstrong was shown a red card after picking up a second booking when chasing down a loose ball alongside Hibs’ Jack Iredale, who he was deemed to have caught. McInnes didn’t believe the incident merited a foul, never mind a red.

He claimed: "Even if it is a foul, it's not a yellow card, but as we can't get VAR involved in yellows there's nothing we can do about it. It's the rules. But I despair at that decision, really.

"I'm annoyed with Danny's first yellow because he gets involved with Nicky Cadden and I can see why the ref books him. But I've watched the second one back numerous times, and all he tries to do is use his body to get a deflection that forces the ball over the line after their keeper makes a save.

"Danny's slow getting in there, a bit slow on the uptake, so he's trying to make ground up. If there's any contact and I'm saying IF it's because Iredale has swung his leg that he's maybe hit Danny on the way through. At that point, I thought Hibs were looking anxious, they were getting agitated and the crowd were turning a wee bit. But after the red card, we lost any momentum."

On the game, McInnes added: “I thought it was a game where conditions were difficult for both sets of players. The wind was swirling. Hibs are effectively playing with two wingers at number nine and their movement and willingness to work in behind our back three at times was good from there point of view in terms of getting up the pitch.

“They score off one of their own corners and you’d have to say Hibs do better at set-plays. We had some decent opportunities and passages of play first half. I thought we were a bit passive in defence, we needed to let Hoilett and Boyle know a wee bit more that they weren’t getting to do their own thing.

“We needed to be up against them more. I thought we were exactly that second half. I thought we had our best spell in the game prior to the sending off.”