Watch Craig Thomson’s honest mistakes (videos)

Craig Thomson’s nightmare season continued at Pittodrie last night as his decisions decided the outcome of Celtic’s visit to Aberdeen.

Two key moments dominated the match with both of them going against Celtic. In the 12th minute of the match Virgil van Dijk brought down Peter Pawlet, did the Dutchman deny the midfielder an obvious goal scoring opportunity? Thomson thought so and a red card was shown.

Despite being down to ten men Celtic dominated the second half following the half time introduction of James Forrest.

Looking for the breakthrough goal Adam Matthews launched a throw-in deep into the Aberdeen penalty box.

When Andy Consodine nervously heads the ball across goal Mark Reynolds sticks out his arm to ensure that the loose ball doesn’t fall to Leigh Griffiths- penalty? Not according to Thomson who either made an honest mistake or was too badly positioned to see the incident.

Either way it explains why Scotland’s leading referee will once again be watching the World Cup from his home this summer.

Discussing those incidents Neil Lennon said: “I thought we were worthy of the win. I thought the referee ruined the game. It’s not a sending-off. Pawlett was going across the goal rather than towards the goal. I’m pretty sure Ambrose would have got across.

“And there was a clear handball in the second half. He saw it and said it wasn’t deliberate.” Since their January jolly to La Manga the standard of refereeing has fallen even further with managers enraged on a weekly basis.

With Willie Collum, Bobby Madden and Brian Colvin challenging Thomson for the title of Scotland’s best referee it’s likely to be a long wait before a Scottish referee appears at the World Cup or is given a knock-out match in the Champions League to apply their own interpretation of the laws of the game.

The SFA recently employed Dougie McDonald in a training post for emerging referees.