Fans of the Ibrox club were outraged when referee Nick Walsh only showed Trusty a yellow card after the centre half kicked the head of Butland in the first half of the last four encounter between the Glasgow rivals.

The Govan club’s chief executive Patrick Stewart spoke to SFA head of refereeing Willie Collum on Monday and a statement was later released expressing anger at “repeated inconsistencies” in decision making.

It emerged yesterday that two of the three members of the SFA Key Match Incident panel felt that Walsh had been wrong not to give the defender a red and believed that the match official’s VAR colleagues had also blundered by not urging him to review the incident on the pitchside monitor.

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But United States internationalist Trusty felt that defending champions Celtic, who won 3-1 following extra-time goals from Callum McGregor and Callum Osmand, had been the better side throughout the 120 minutes and had deserved to go through to the final against St Mirren next month.

“It's just a rivalry,” he said. “Both sides whether they win or lose try to find a way to...