'There's no clarity': Motherwell boss Stuart Kettlewell fumes over head injury call

Motherwell boss Stuart Kettlewell says communication with the Scottish FA has failed to provide clarity over a controversial decision in his side’s 4-1 loss to Dundee, and says officials making the wrong calls can cause “massive” shift in momentum.

Kettlewell was left fuming on Wednesday night when Dundee broke to score their second goal when Motherwell defender Kofi Balmer remained on the ground in the opposition box after going up for a corner.

The manager believed his player had been fouled but insisted that the apparent head injury should have required John Beaton to stop immediately to safeguard Balmer’s welfare.

Kettlewell was unhappy after speaking to Beaton after the match, saying that the match official had indicated “he didn’t think it was enough of a blow to the head to merit the player not moving on the ground”.

Motherwell sought clarification from Scottish FA head of referee operations Willie Collum but were left unsatisfied by what they were told, with Kettlewell suggesting there were conflicting versions of events and factual errors.

“I’ll speak freely and give my take on it,” he said on Friday. “The football club has spoken to Willie. Brian Caldwell, our chief executive, has been in dialogue with him.

“From my side of it, the clarity is that there’s no clarity. Why I say that is because there’s a mixed message in whether there was a head knock, whether they saw a head knock or whether it was there and they didn’t think it was too significant, or we completely didn’t see the player lying on the ground.

“I feel like we’ve had a few different versions of that until we get to the end point, which is ultimately ‘If we had seen it then we would have stopped the game’, but that’s where I have to challenge the fact that the team of officials, it’s the opposite side linesman’s job to follow the last defender.

“He would see Kofi Balmer is lying on the ground, hasn’t moved and is holding his head.

“The fourth official has me directly in front of him before Dundee have crossed the half-way line, and I have to stress that, screaming and pointing as I’m looking him in the eye and telling him our player hasn’t moved. ‘He’s on the ground, holding his head and motionless’ were my exact words’.

“I understand that the referee might be following the ball, but that’s why there’s a team of officials.

“So for anybody to tell me that they weren’t aware that he was lying on the ground, and I think it was also mentioned that holding the head was an afterthought when he saw there was a counter-attack, that’s factually incorrect and you can watch any angle you want. He falls on the ground, holds his head and doesn’t move.

“I know a lot of people don’t like this angle and the words I’m about to use: Match officials, when you see someone falling to the ground and not moving, you do not get to decide how bad that is. You don’t get to decide and play God.”

In addition to the player safety concerns, the decision allowed Dundee’s second goal to stand and Kettlewell said that decisions were having far-reaching consequences. Motherwell have now lost three games in a row, conceding nine times and the manager believes they have been on the end of two particular decisions that have cause negative “momentum shifts”.

“What’s a huge part of the game in Scotland when you look at how tight the league is and how close things are between many of the team, is that momentum shifts are massive,” he said.

“Whether it’s the first goal, and I spoke about it after the game, I sat at a manager’s meeting the night before the game and was told categorically that we should have had a penalty against Ross County at 0-0.

“These make the difference. They absolutely do.

“I’m not sitting here feeling sorry for myself but at some point, whether it’s when you’re on a bad run or even going to Ross County looking for a third win on the bounce, you need some of these decisions to go in your favour. Especially when we all sit here after the event and say categorically that should have been the outcome.

“I feel that when you look at that Ross County call and the second goal that Dundee scored on Wednesday, they are big, big decisions that have gone against us.”