The mistakes debate
I’ve got four grievances and listed them below
Yesterday, Cha Du-Ri was red carded for doing something that opposition players at Celtic Park are often allowed to do without even conceding a free kick. The argument in favour of Cha being given a red card is that he denied Lee Wallace a goal scoring opportunity. The rules of the game state that doing such a thing is a red card offence.
Let’s examine that. First up, Wallace has played, in professional football, 177 times and scored 3 goals so what made the referee think that he was going to score from outside the box at such an angle ?
Charlie Mulgrew was covering from the centre back position so could you argue that he was going to catch Wallace ? I’m not saying that he would have done and I’m not saying that he wouldn’t have either.
Yes Cha was caught out of position and not for the first time but regardless of that, he shouldn’t have been sent off.
With those two factors, how someone can tell me that Cha denied a clear goal scoring opportunity is beyond me. Keep in mind that the red card is issued for denying a clear goal scoring opportunity, not a ‘he might have scored opportunity’. In turn, this means that the ref has either made an ‘honest mistake’ or something else.
I would buy into the “honest mistake” excuse, however, I can’t. If they were honest mistakes, then why do we never benefit from several match changing decisions in the one match
The next one was Victor Wanyama, he has cleanly won the ball. Have you ever saw a football player being sent off for winning the ball ?
Yes, I accept that he went in with both feet but so did Lee McCulloch when he injured Birim Kayal. That’s a red card for the Celtic player and nothing for the Rangers player.
When Rangers played Arbroath in the cup, Carlos Bocanegra was booked for winning the ball with a two footed challenge. Is anyone willing to guess on who the referee was ?
I researched that while writing the piece and wasn’t surprised at all to discover that it was the same referee- Calum Murray. How can he only give a yellow card to a Rangers player but a red to a Celtic player for a similar incident?
The third big decision that I picked up on was one that Neil Lennon also mentioned in his post match comments. When Rangers scored their second goal it looked offside.
TV replays have proved that to be the case.
There was an assistant ref almost in line with it, so why didn’t he see it ? Was he incompetent too or was it something else?
Next point up for me was the fact that Steven Whittaker was allowed to, with both hands, bring one of our players down inside the penalty box. Can anyone say why that it wasn’t a penalty?
The referee or assistant should have been well positioned to see such a thing. If not, why not, these referees are reported to be on £850 per match so simply missing something or making honest mistakes isn’t good enough.
On the build up to the third Rangers goal, there was a foul in the middle of the pitch that wasn’t given to us. Adam Matthews had a player tackle him from behind to take the ball off him. With nine men on the pitch, you need fouls to be given when they are committed.
So, to summarise, my points are that we had two wrong or debatable red cards, an offside goal scored against us, a foul not given in the build up to a 3rd goal against us and a stone wall penalty denied.
I realise that this piece has been pretty negative and probably done in quite an angry tone but that’s because I am fed up with our club being on the receiving end up such decisions and feel it’s time for both the clubs and fans to stand up against it.
And the best thing is that my initial response to Rangers fans is to remind them that their club still doesn’t have two coins to rub together, they are still facing liquidation and still 18 points behind us the league
It must be said too that such a young football team showed remarkable discipline not to lose the plot with so much going against them. With so many opponents to play against, it’s remarkable that we finished the match with a one goal deficit. Well done to Neil Lennon and the bhoys and the fans who turned up.
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