Dundee United v Hibs quotes: Lee Johnson hits out at disallowed goal and Tony Watt decisions as Liam Fox hails team's resilience

Hibs manager Lee Johnson laughs at the referee during a cinch Premiership match between Dundee United and Hibernian at Tannadice, on Ocrober 11, 2022, in Dundee, Scotland. (Photo by Ross Parker / SNS Group)

The Arabs moved off the foot of the cinch Premiership thanks to Aziz Behich’s 11th-minute strike on Tuesday evening, but Hibs passed up a hatful of good chances and had a goal controversially ruled out on 34 minutes when Mykola Kukhraveych’s effort was annulled by referee Euan Anderson.

Johnson also felt Dundee United’s Tony Watt was lucky to stay on the pitch for what he perceived as a series of infringements.

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

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

“We scored a goal that was chalked off, unbelievable.

“It was a night of fantastic goalkeeping [by United’s Carljohan Eriksson] and poor finishing, depending how you look at it.

“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.

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

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

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

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

On Watt, Johnson added: “He should have been sent off and booked three times – we will have to leave that one to the SFA.”

Johnson’ counterpart, Liam Fox, was heartened by his team’s resilience as they held on for a precious win.

“It was eventful, it was end to end and plenty for people to talk about,” said Fox.

“But we came out with three points and that was the main concern, so I’m delighted.

“I was pleased with the resilience, Hibs are a very good side and they made us work tonight.

“The most pleasing thing for me was the desire and character. You can talk about formations but you need that desire too.

“It was a very good goal to win it, that’s two in two for Aziz now so well done to him.

“Carljohan was excellent, you can see his confidence growing now.

“We are delighted with the clean sheet, it’s a team effort - it’s about the team above the individual here.

“We will have to dig very deep again going up to Ross County at the weekend, we will go there positive and go there on the front foot.

“Fingers crossed we will have Steven Fletcher and Charlie Mulgrew available for that too.”