Chris Sutton has taken aim at Rangers attacker Malik Tillman following controversy during yesterday's Partick Thistle Scottish Cup tie.

The drama came after Rangers had put the ball out for Tillman to receive treatment for an injury.

Thistle's Kevin Holt looked to launch a long ball from a throw-in back into the Gers half to return possession but Tillman robbed him and ran through to round the goalkeeper and put the ball in the net, sparking Thistle fury and a melee involving players from both sides.

Michael Beale then instructed his players to allow Scott Tiffoney to run up the pitch and equalise and he was glad to get the winner with four minutes of normal time remaining when Connor McAvoy headed into his own net under pressure from James Sands.

Speaking on BBC's 606 Celtic legend Sutton had his say on the incident. He said: "Yeah, there was a big, big controversial incident up there, wasn’t there?

"Tillman scoring a goal which he shouldn’t have done.

"He shouldn’t have scored because I think he was injured and went back on.

"The Partick Thistle players were outraged. Really poor from Tillman.”

Beale spoke about a “disjointed” first-half performance but was adamant that Tillman, on loan from Bayern Munich, was completely innocent.

He said: “Malik gets injured and we play the ball out, Malik is down on the floor and he doesn’t see that we have played the ball out.

“So by the time Malik gets up, he sees they have a throw-in and he puts his hand up to the referee as if to say, ‘how have they got a throw?’ and then he presses as he has been taught.

“He is completely unaware of the situation, of what has happened. I had to speak to my bench to make sure that is what they saw as well. Malik came over and I spoke to him and he confirmed it.

“So it (allowing Thistle to level) was the right thing to do. I will tell you why it was the right thing to do. Malik Tillman is a fantastic young player and I don’t want that hanging around his head.

“He has never cheated anyone in his life and as a football club we have high standards.

“We don’t need to do that to beat Partick Thistle at home. It is not an easy thing to ask footballers to do because they haven’t seen it but it was the right thing to do.

“For everything I want to stand for as a club and what I want to stand for and also for protecting a fantastic young player from having something thrown at him which I won’t allow.

“Yes it could have been risky but we don’t want to win like that. We don’t want to earn anything we aren’t due as a club or what we have earned on the park.

“That’s my overriding feeling on the whole situation that it would have been unjust if we had gone through that way.”