Ian McCall blasts officials as he insists Partick Thistle didn’t deserve cup exit at Dundee United

Partick Thistle boss Ian McCall insisted his side did not deserve to be knocked out of the Scottish Cup after a last-gasp 2-1 defeat to Dundee United at Tannadice.

Partick manager Ian McCall speaks with referee Steven McLean after the incident involving Brian Graham

McCall also claimed the home team should have been reduced to ten men after Ryan Edwards was involved in an off-the-ball incident with Brian Graham in the second half.

The Thistle bench were livid but referee Steven McLean and his officials did not see anything amiss.

The Jags had taken the lead through Scott Tiffoney but were pegged back by Lawrence Shankland before substitute Nicky Clark secured the win late on for the Tangerines.

However, McCall was left fuming his side were out of the cup and said: "We should have been 3-0 up at half-time.

"There is no place for what the big centre-back has done - punching somebody on the pitch.

"We're really disappointed the referee and the linesman didn't see it. I've been in the game a long time and it's rare you see something like that.

"Maybe he'll [Edwards] get punished for it because it's punished us.”

Home boss Micky Mellon was just relieved United had progressed.

He said: "The important thing is we got there in the end. There is a lot of stuff we want to improve on but we showed in little spells what we want to do as a team.

"We lost our way a little in the first half but second half we came out and probably didn't get the rewards to start with for getting on track again.

"But to be in the hat for the next round is the most important thing."

A message from the Editor:

Thank you for reading this article. We're more reliant on your support than ever as the shift in consumer habits brought about by Coronavirus impacts our advertisers.

If you haven't already, please consider supporting our trusted, fact-checked journalism by taking out a digital subscription.