Fortunately Olivier Ntcham was able to walk away from this brutal challenge from Jack Hendry.
Inexplicably referee John Beaton took no action against the Dundee defender despite being no more than ten yards away from his lunge at the ankle of the Celtic midfielder.
In any Champions League tie a straight red card would be issued with Hendry criticised for letting his team down. Most EPL referees would also have issued a straight red.
“Not even a yellow card given, could it have been a red?” ????
“That could break his ankle…” ????
Is Jack Hendry lucky to be on the pitch? pic.twitter.com/IiGrX87Gy7
— BT Sport Football (@btsportfootball) September 20, 2017
For whatever reason Beaton decided that no card was needed. Later on in the half he booked Ntcham for much lesser infringements, having had his ankle attacked it’s little wonder that the Frenchman felt the need to look after himself.
Beaton’s decision picks up on the mood from last season that Celtic players are able to cope with brutal attacks.
It seems that officials are loathe to send off opponents because their team already has their work cut out to contain the hoops. The result of that attitude is that teams know that they can put the boot in with Celtic players getting zero protection and being left open to injury.
Last season Scott Sinclair suffered it against Inverness Caley Thistle when Kevin Clancy let Iain Vigurs go unpunished.
So this is a yellow in Scotland is it @ScottishFA? You need to get it sorted cause folk are getting injured cause of incompetence. pic.twitter.com/z0aw3BhEwO
— Gastro Celtic (@Gastro_Celtic) February 11, 2017
A few weeks later Kieran Tierney had the studs of Ryan Bowman printed onto his thigh, Don Robertson apologetically issued a yellow card to the Motherwell man.
Hopefully the next player to assault a Celtic player gets a red card as Callum McGregor should have for a stoppage time lunge at Paul McGowan.