Nick Montgomery bemoans continued Hibs penalty misfortune as he offers David Marshall injury update
Montgomery claims Nicky Devlin should have been penalised for handball during 2-2 draw with Aberdeen.
Irked Nick Montgomery felt VAR denied Hibs a penalty that could have given them all three points at Pittodrie.
The visiting boss was left baffled that his side didn’t get one of what he thought were two potential handballs, when the ball came off the upper arm of Nicky Devlin. Hibs had gone ahead at Aberdeen but then sub Emiliano Marcondes had to come off the bench to rescue a 2-2 draw.
Montgomery claimed: “We thought we should have had a penalty in the first half for handball. We’ve had a lot of those given against us, but unfortunately that one didn’t go for us. I don't want to get drawn into VAR but we have a screen where we can slow it down and have a look. There were two calls for handball in the same incident and you think you might get one of them, but his arm's away from his body and it's hit his [Devlin's] arm, but I'm told it's not a penalty and it's been cleared.
“We just have to move on. The only thing we can focus on is the next game. We move on. We could have taken the three points but it wasn't to be, but we take a point from a difficult place.
“It was really competitive, two teams fighting to get towards the top six. We'll give everything we can between now and the end of the season to give ourselves a chance to finish strongly.”
Montgomery praised the character of his team to bounce back from losing two cheap goals. Montgomery claimed: “I think it could have been more. We scored early in the game but we’re really disappointed to concede so soon after.
“Miovski’s movement is incredible, he’s always working off the back of people, but we’d worked on it all week – and we’re disappointed to concede that equaliser. After that it was a tight game between two pretty even teams on a difficult pitch, players slipping around, making mistakes.
“In the second half, we’ve conceded another poor goal on our part. It’s a disappointing goal, a bit scrappy, and we have to defend from wide a bit better. The boys showed great character.”
There was a blow as David Marshall had to limp off at Pittodrie with a hamstring issue. Montgomery explained: “The pitch was very slippy. He's gone to catch the ball and he's gone down and slipped and felt a little tweak in his hamstring. “Hopefully it's not too bad.
“We did the right thing by bringing on Jojo Wollacott on. I thought Jojo came on and he was composed. He stepped up when we needed him. Hopefully Marsh's isn't a bad one and we'll see in the next couple of games.”