MacPherson feels guidelines are not being adhered to

St Mirren boss Gus MacPherson was angry Rangers' David Weir was not punished by referee Charlie Richmond for a foul early in the Buddies' loss at Ibrox.

"I'm not wanting players booked or red-carded but there are laws to the game," MacPherson told BBC Scotland after Saints' 3-1 defeat.

"David Weir impeded Michael Higdon in the process of shooting, he affected how he was shooting.

"There's a decision to get made there. No decision was made."

MacPherson feels guidelines set down at the start of the season are not being adhered to.

"It's compulsory that we must go to a meeting at the start of the season, it's not optional, and we're set down guidelines," he said.

"And during the course of the season, these guidelines change. I'm not just talking about St Mirren games, I'm talking throughout the game as we see it.

"We watch games, we go to games and we see clips on the BBC and we see a different set of rules getting applied. None more so than when we're coming here (to Ibrox).

"We're actually shown clips at the start of the season by (Scottish FA head of referees) Hugh Dallas and shown incidents of what's important and what the new guidelines are yet, when the games come along, when there's decisions to get made, they don't get made.

"A lot of football people at the meeting were actually questioning and arguing, which is healthy because that's what the game's all about.

"But then, when the games come along, you're looking for them to be applied in the correct manner and it's not getting done.

We took the lead but we didn't hang on to it for long enough and that changed the atmosphere in the arena Gus MacPherson

"And I'm not talking just specifically about this game, I'm talking about other games that we've seen and decisions that we don't see."

St Mirren took the lead at Ibrox through Graham Carey's free-kick but Lee McCulloch's brace and a Nacho Novo goal gave Rangers victory.

"I think we've competed well for good spells in the game," said MacPherson.

"We took the lead but we didn't hang on to it for long enough and that changed the atmosphere in the arena.

"At half-time, we talked about how important the start of the second half was and within a couple of minutes we found ourselves 2-1 down. That was disappointing."

The Buddies were dealt an injury blow when Chris Innes limped off and other injuries meant MacPherson could only list six players on his substitutes bench, with St Mirren due to meet Rangers again in the Co-operative Insurance League Cup final later this month.

"It seems to be a recurrence of his groin injury," MacPherson said of Innes.

"He's obviously going to be a doubt for the games that are coming up, we'll just need to wait and see how he is.

"There are massive games coming up and we're short of bodies. Only six subs, that's the situation we're in. Four players missing out today and that's just the size of the squad that we've got to work with."

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