The midfield player’s yellow card was upgraded to a red one during a VAR review, and he was ordered out during the victory at Ibrox.
Due to his dismissal for challenging Amadou Bakayoko, Cifuentes will be unable to participate in Sunday’s Viaplay Cup final against Aberdeen.
On Thursday night in the Europa League against Real Betis, he is, nevertheless, available for selection.
Clement questioned the severity of his player’s punishment, calling the red card “strange”.
When asked if the red card ruling that was upheld surprised him, he responded, “Obviously.” It surprised everyone, including the Dundee players, I believe.
“Looking back at the photo, managers may find it frustrating, but if the referee issues a yellow card that later turns into a red card, they will witness numerous more poor tackles that result in yellow cards when they watch Match of the Day the following day. That was unusual, then.
“Then you watch the replay of the video from the game where Jose makes contact, but since the player slides to meet him as he goes for the ball, you can see that five or six Dundee players are surrounding him and that nobody is responding to the referee. Nothing. It was a duel, so they just keep attacking.
It was contact, to be sure, but not a serious foul. Thus, having to play with just 10 players after losing a player in the first half is disheartening. However, I think it would be a little bit excessive to miss two more games after that.
“All right, that’s up to other people to decide; I have no influence over that. I’ll concentrate on the guys who are available.
“I’m going to be really interested to see the next couple of months if these contacts happen and whether every time it is a red card.”
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