A Leroy George deflected free kick was cancelled out by Alvaro Cejudo on the brink of half-time, but drama occurred minutes later after Michael Thwaite conceded a penalty and was sent off six minutes into added time.

Besart Berisha’s spot kick was halted momentarily as the VAR intervened and adjudged Barbarouses had stomped on Keanu Baccus' foot and was subsequently dismissed by Evans.

Muscat revealed post-match the Kiwi international was “distraught” and “affected" by the decision. And while the Victory boss had not seen the replay, he warned match officials tthey were leaving themselves open to charges of double standards.

“It’s an incident where the VAR got themselves involved, so it better be 100 per cent accurate and worthy,” Muscat said post match.

“There might be contact because… I seem to recall an incident months ago where (Sydney FC striker) Bobo caught someone behind play and the contact was deemed not violent or not disturbing the game.

“If there was any contact from Kosta, then it better have been violent and worthy of a red card, otherwise it’s double standards.”

 


Later, Muscat took aim at the amount of time it took for the VAR to reach a conclusive decision.

“You could sense it in the stadium, the fact for me if you were taking four minutes or whatever it was, you can’t be certain,” he said.

“If you happen to watch 10 replays, you can’t be certain can you? Or do you watch the 11th one and say ‘oh, I’ve made sure now’.

“Surely if you watch once it’s deemed a red card, move on and do it quickly. If you have to watch it 10 times, how many times can you rewind and look at it with different angles in four and a half minutes?”

Despite Barbarouses’ dismissal, Muscat was pleased with the performance against Western Sydney.

Victory now leave Melbourne at 6am on Monday morning to meet Ulsan Hyundai for their fifth game of this year’s Asian Champions League campaign on Wednesday.