PEDRO Caixinha, the Rangers manager, last night revealed he is compiling a list of the refereeing decisions which are given for and against his team on the eve of the first Old Firm game of the season.
Caixinha, whose side take on Celtic at Ibrox this afternoon, has grown increasingly concerned about the number of bad calls which he believes match officials have made in games involving his team.
He is convinced they currently outweigh the rulings which have gone in his side’s favour - and will speak to SFA head of refereeing John Fleming at the end of the 2017/18 campaign if that is still the case.
“I am not here to point or to criticise the referees, “he said. “Sometimes they have good decisions, other times they have not. Sometimes maybe they have not good decisions in your favour, other times they give decisions against you. As long as by the end and you take the count there is no deficit. So far I think we have a deficit.
“I am working on it. I am going to do like an account list, for and against. Normally, when things are regular, by the end everything is balanced. I just want to understand and see how things are going to be.
“The first time I started to do it was in Mexico. Why Mexico? Because you know that in the beginning of all seasons we have a meeting with the referees to talk about all the rules, attention more on this, attention more on that.
“Everything is discussed because we want to have a clean and open communication so anything that might happen we need to discuss it and if possible we need to discuss it in private.
“My question is to analyse and to discuss it by the images that are sent to the referees’ committee or whatever with our thoughts about it. Are we seeing the game and the rules of the game being applied in favour/against/in favour/against? Just like that. I don’t want more than that.”
The Portuguese coach has only criticised one referee publicly – he was unhappy with John Beaton’s performance in the 3-2 defeat to Hibernian in a Ladbrokes Premiership game at Ibrox last month.
Ryan Jack, who was sent off in that match, subsequently won his appeal against the red card which he received following an altercation with Anthony Stokes.
He said: “I only point my finger to one referee or referee’s decision - after Hibs because it was really too much. The reason is on my side because it’s not about the referee or the decisions, it’s the player that was involved in it.
“I watched some more matches and the same player, in my opinion, needed to receive at least two more red cards directly, and he stayed on the pitch.”
Caixinha has been unhappy that the Rangers goalkeeper has been blocked by rival players at corners this season and referees have taken no action against the offending team.
“The issue is that repeatedly, even in this last match, our goalkeeper Jak (Alnwick) was blocked by (Conor) Sammon,” he said. “And nothing happened. And two second balls were in our box and the game is on. That’s what I am referring to.”
“But the goalkeeper cannot be touched, please. The goalkeeper on the goal kick area, he cannot be touched. If he cannot be touched he definitely cannot be blocked.”
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