'There is no VAR, so end of discussion' - Giovanni van Bronckhorst says there is no point bemoaning Rangers' penalty claims against Dundee United at Tannadice

Rangers manager Giovanni van Bronckhorst refused to lay the blame for his team’s latest slip in the title race at the door of the match officials.

Rangers manager Giovanni van Bronckhorst takes issue with fourth official Chris Graham during his team's 1-1 draw against Dundee United at Tannadice. (Photo by Alan Harvey / SNS Group)

The Scottish champions had two penalty claims turned down in their 1-1 draw against Dundee United at Tannadice, both involving the home team’s scorer Ross Graham.

The first came when the match was still goalless, the ball clearly striking the United defender’s arm, with the second coming in the second half when Graham pulled Fashion Sakala’s shirt as the Rangers substitute lined up a shot.

But van Bronckhorst was more concerned by his team’s failure to make their dominance of the contest count than he was by the refereeing decisions.

“You know my standing point,” he said. “VAR will make it easier and these decisions can be turning points. They can change the games. But there is no VAR, so end of discussion.

“What can we do? There is no VAR so every decision that the referee will make cannot be overturned. We have to respect the decision that he makes.

“We saw last Thursday when VAR decisions (in Dortmund) changed the game for us. Today maybe as well. But we can talk for hours here and the discussion ends because there is no VAR.

“The first emotion of course is disappointment that we didn’t win here. I don’t know how many chances we created, I think the most chances we created this season to score. But eventually the chances have to be scored and that is what we didn’t do today and that is why we dropped points.”

Graham’s 29th minute opener for United came from a corner kick with Rangers only able to convert one of their opportunities in the second half when Joe Aribo equalised.

“We knew with the set pieces against that they were getting dangerous moments,” said van Bronckhorst. “Second half was only one way and once we scored the first goal you see the momentum was for us. We created enough chances to win this game and that is the only thing that we didn’t do well today.

“We created 29 chances today and that is enough to win against Dundee United here in their own ground. We didn’t and that is why we lost points.”

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