Celtic booked their place in the last eight of the Scottish Cup despite a horrendous performance from referee Steven McLean in the 3-2 win over Partick Thistle.
The hoops have been badly effected by injuries in recent weeks with Brendan Rodgers facing an anxious check on his players after today’s match.
McLean seemed happy to give the Thistle players licence to do as they please as they charged in late and clumsy without any prospect of punishment.
Kieran Tierney was fouled three times in quick succession by Ryan Edwards during the first half with the visiting players taking full advantage of the leniency that they were shown.
Midway through the first half attention switched to Mikael Lustig. With the defenders’ eye on the ball Lustig slid in for a loose ball with Callum Booth. Unfortunately Booth has his eye on Lustig, raised his boot and collided with his opponents left knee.
Lustig took the blow on the knee cap and recovered after treatment.
McLean seemed uninterested in using his cards, if Booth had been shown a red there would have been no complaints.
Taking a lead from his team-mates Tomas Cerny decided to impose himself on Moussa Dembele.
On the hour mark the Thistle keeper fumbled a ball in the six yard box, as Dembele eyed it up Cerny reached for the ball and kicked out at Dembele in full view of McLean.
The Thistle keeper apologised to Dembele and played on rather than heading for an early bath as a new keeper came on to face a penalty.
Thistle picked up one booking from 21 fouls, Celtic had no yellow cards from 10 free kicks.
Celtic won 3-2 thanks to a James Forrest hat-trick with the quarter final draw taking place after tomorrow’s Aberdeen v Dundee United clash.