Referee appointments point to Thomson for January 2 derby
Lafferty-Zheng Zhi
The SFA have left Craig Thomson out of Celtic and Rangers’ next two matches leaving him free to take charge of the January 2 derby at Ibrox.
Thomson hasn’t been given the derby fixture since his below par performance in October last year forced disgraced former refereeing chief Hugh Dallas into a second hand apology.
During that match Thomson denied Celtic two clear cut penalties, booked Shaun Maloney and Mark Wilson for simulation, awarded Davie Weir immunity from being cautioned and ignored an x-rated challenge on Celtic’s Zheng Zhi from Kyle Lafferty.
Willie Collum has also been omitted from the next two rounds of fixtures for both clubs but it’s very unusual for any referee to be given back-to-back Celtic-Rangers matches.
The only remaining referees who have previously taken charge of the Glasgow derby are Calum Murray and Steve Conroy who has been in the refereeing equivalent of Siberia this season.
Murray, who apologised to Terry Butcher after awarding Rangers a penalty in their last outing at Inverness, has been given Celtic’s Boxing Day match with St Johnstone.
Although there is another round of fixtures before the January 2 clash it’s unlikely that the same referee would be given matches involving the same club on successive weekends. Celtic’s December 29 match with Motherwell will be refereed by Stephen Finnie.
One more and you're booked
Willie Collum makes an unwelcome return, weather permitting, to Celtic Park tomorrow for the match with Kilmarnock, hopefully his positional sense and ability to watch the match will have improved since the Rangers fiasco in October when he awarded Rangers a penalty for an incident which he didn’t see.
Rangers match at Dundee United is due to be refereed by Thomson who was down for the original postponed fixture.
On Sunday Iain Brines will be in charge of Rangers match at Motherwell with Alan Muir in the middle for their midweek trip to St Johnstone.
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