Who was the guilty party? Neymar, Brown or referee Lannoy
I was wishing horrible injuries upon him during the game. I was thinking that if he never played another game of football, that wouldn’t really be a bad thing.
I’m not only referring to him, I’m referring to any footballers who are happy to dive around and feign injury in order to gain an advantage for their team. Some people will probably argue that Celtic players might do this at some point.My opinion is still the same. For years, I have admired Barcelona, however, I have never been a fan of players rolling around like a child playing ‘soldiers’ when someone has tackled them.
I was saying that a cheating scum bag like that doesn’t deserve to play for a club like Barcelona. Maybe that was just a case of being caught up in the emotion of the occasion.
Would I be happy to accept a Celtic win if it was one of our players acted in such a manner ? I’d like to think that Celtic wouldn’t be pleased to win in this manner.
That said, I would like to think that this view would be consistent throughout football. Or is it a case of if you can’t beat them, join them? Why a player with such ability has to resort to play acting in order to get a fellow professional sent off is beyond me.
Is it cheating ? Yes. Is it up to the referee to make the decision ? Most definitely. In turn does that mean that the referee is more at fault than the player ?
So why was the red card actually given ? Scott Brown was not the last man, it wasn’t a clear goal scoring opportunity and the referee was holding a yellow card then changed it to red.
Perhaps whoever speaks to these guys in their earphones told him to change it from yellow to red ?
The TV replay, media reports etc was saying that Brown aimed a kick at the player. I don’t think he did at all. Brown fouled the guy and while both of them are still moving, Brown’s foot has brushed against him.
Keep in mind that these guys can be running at anything up to about 12 mph. In turn that means that they cannot stop immediately. There’s a thing called momentum and for me, that’s what caused Brown to catch Neymar.
Another way to look at it. If you watched the game in the stadium, did you think it was a straight red ? If watching on TV, did you think on the first view that it was a red card ? I don’t know about TV viewers but I’m certain the vast majority in the stadium disagreed with it being a red.
Neymar’s reaction was utterly shameful. That’s why I had so much anger towards him.
In the past, we have heard that some players have come to Celtic Park on a Champions League night and been blown away by the atmosphere. I think the same thing happened to the referee last night. He seemed to be erratic at best.
Given the fact that this blog would never be published if I repeated my opinions of the referee that I held during the game, I wont bother. However, if this is the top club competition in world football, we need the top players, top clubs and also the top officials.
Moving on to the game itself. Barcelona didn’t make very many chances against us when it was 11 v 11. We had a few good chances, James Forrest took his shot well and credit to Victor Valdes for the save.
Shortly after that, Charlie Mulgrew’s header went wide. For me, that was as bad a miss as Efe Ambrose’s header at home against Juventus last season.
Perhaps that’s the difference between a top side and between us. A top end and massively expensive defender would have been more likely to have scored. Unfortunately, money talks in football and that’s why we can’t afford the high end players that might allow us to win such games.
The group has four more games to go so there’s nothing to say that we cannot qualify. Ajax at home and away for the next two games will define what happens now.I’d hope for a home win against Ajax, perhaps a point or three over in Amsterdam and then we have Milan at home. Celtic, the management, fans and players already know that we are capable of competing against the teams in this group.Despite two defeats in two games, all is certainly not lost and if we can perhaps be a bit more clinical with our finishing and have a bit more luck, then maybe we can get out of this group.
Which moves me on to the final question for this blog. What is best, qualifying for the last 16 and almost certainly loose in that game or would a third place finish be better to allow us into the Europa League ?
Obviously getting into the Europa League would not guarantee progression but I just feel that maybe we would be more likely to proceed in the Europa league than the Champions League.That said, I would never want us not to be in the Champions League. Think of the build up to it. Think of the atmosphere itself. We would be mad to want to give that up.