Kilmarnock boss Derek McInnes: 'VAR is driving us all mad'

Derek McInnes has added to the continued criticism of VAR in Scottish football, saying that inconsistent decisions are “driving us all mad”.

The Kilmarnock manager has made his feelings known on several decisions in recent weeks, questioning why VAR got involved in upgrading a yellow card for Corrie Ndaba against Hibs to a red in January, and then insisting the call to send Lewis Mayo off against Dundee was an incident where a VAR review was needed but not used.

That incident was not the only flashpoint in the weekend’s action, with Celtic also appealing a red card and making their “serious concerns” about officiating clear to the Scottish FA.

Rangers and Aberdeen have also been critical recently and the Killie boss feels a major part of the issue is inconsistency.

“It’s been a lot of instances we’ve similarities to a lot of the issues going on, some tackles this weekend that look way beyond anything my player Corrie Ndaba got sent off for a few weeks ago when the referee was asked to come to the monitor,” he said.

“It’s been tackles in the last few weeks where it’s miles (worse), and then the criteria that I was told by the refereeing department, there was a lot of things happened at the weekend that you think why was there not more red cards?

“So the inconsistency of it all is driving us all mad, it really is. And the handball one at Celtic, we had similar with Kyle Vassell at Easter Road last season.

“So I think sometimes in these instances, maybe the on-field decisions should stick a wee bit more.

“But it’s not been a good weekend, I don’t think.”

While some have talked about their desire to see the system scrapped altogether, McInnes feels there is room for improvement and that the current use isn’t getting the best results it could.

“We need to get to where if it’s the same ‘crime’ then it’s the same punishment and there’s parallels there,” he said.

“I’ve said often enough about getting ex-referees or former players involved in the VAR studio.

“It’s difficult to find exactly but it’s still down to referees getting the correct decisions and I don’t think we’re getting it anywhere near as right as we should do.

“I don’t think we’re utilising the software to its full impact at the moment.”