As Andreas Hinkel said after the recent draw with Falkirk there have been a lot of strange decisions against Celtic this season.
Continuing that theme tonight was another below par performance from Iain Brines littered with puzzling decisions which all went one way.
Tony Mowbray is responsible for the problems and failings of the Celtic team such as why Artur Boruc allowed a striker a free header in the six yard box from a corner and how Georgios Samaras manages to head over the bar from similar distances.
Mowbray’s future rests on decisions like that.
Brines however appears answerable to no-one although it’s no surprise that he no longer gets matches from UEFA and that Scottish referees will be watching the World Cup and later stages of the Champions League on television.
Throughout the entire match Brines gave puzzling decisions culminating in disallowing a ‘goal’ from Darren O’Dea just before half time.
From his vantage point outside the penalty box he disallowed the ‘goal’ without any appeal or claim coming from the Hibs players.
Earlier on he had penalised Samaras for nothing more than an ordinary challenge on Graeme Hogg that allowed the striker to turn the Hibs captain and head for goal.
Into the second half and Paul Hanlon flies into a two footed ‘challenge’ on Andreas Hinkel and escapes without as much as a word in his ear from the now lenient Brines.
There were no other dangerous fouls from the Hibs players but they could put in fouls in telling areas knowing that there was no prospect of a booking with Brines content to award a free-kick without even speaking to the offender.
Celtic’s finishing was woeful with a number of chances created and missed, these matters are for Mowbray to address and be held responsible for.
With Celtic pushing forward for the winner substitute Ki Sung Yeung was fouled 25 yards from goal but rather than get a last chance from a set piece Brines waved play on.
Hibs quickly fed the ball to Anthony Stokes who pushed it into the path of substitute Danny Galbraith whose low shot across Boruc found the corner of the net.
An evening of strange decisions in a strange season from our match officials.
As Hinkel said after the draw with Falkirk: “As a player you give your best, but here, week after week, there is something happening.
“It’s not really my thing to say something about referees but once again we had some strange decisions. Not just the penalty- look at the situation when Artur had a free-kick given against him.
“It hurts when we don’t take chances but it just seems to be one thing after another at the moment.”