Dougie Imrie accuses referee of ‘just doing it for himself’

Neither goalkeeper made a significant save during the competition, but towards the end tempers flared and the official issued a total of 10 cautions.

Imrie himself ended up in the book after an altercation with Thistle winger Scott Tiffoney and the Morton manager was unhappy with Muir’s card-loving portrayal.

Muir was the man in the middle when those two sides last met at Firhill earlier in the year and Imrie ended up in the stands that afternoon for arguing a bit too vigorously for a penalty – and the Cappielow boss believes that it was the piper who stole the limelight in Greenock.

“It was a good two-team game, but Mr. Muir wanted to take care of himself again,” said Imrie. “There weren’t 10 bookings in the game, were there? I don’t think there was a bad tackle but it is what it is.

“He was the same referee we had when we last played them at Firhill in January [when Thistle won 2-1] but I don’t make those decisions. In that match, I was sent to the stands. He gave Thistle a penalty and he didn’t give us another.

“In my mind I don’t see why you should put that pressure on the referee by giving him the same game next time but that’s just my opinion and it doesn’t count. If you watched it, you would certainly use a different referee.

In his encounter with Tiffoney, where Imrie shielded the ball as a thistle player as he was about to collect it for a throw-in before being awarded a yellow card, Imrie added: “I don’t know what the boy was talking about . It’s just strange that people are young and naive.”