Neil Lennon has hit out at Don Robertson for short changing Celtic of stoppage time during the match with Ross County.
There seems to be an almost ‘mercy’ ruling among match officials that when a team is being hammered to put them out of their misery swiftly with a minimum of added time.
With Celtic cruising to a 6-0-win Robertson added an extra minute with that factor highlighted to Lennon in an interview with Celtic TV, he admitted:
I did say to my staff that we’re only going to get one minute here because the game is away, it’s very flat. That’s not consistent with the law. We made three subs; Ross County made three so you’re looking at least three minutes there.
It may come in handy to have a couple of extra minutes, we could add one or two more. But that would take away from the over-riding emotion for me which was one of immense pride in that performance.
At the end of the weekend Celtic were on top of the SPFL Premiership based on goals scored with the same points total and goal difference as the Ibrox club.
Almost all football matches see three minutes of added time due to injuries and substitutions but it seems that one sided matches are refereed in a different manner.
Robertson was in charge for Celtic’s 1-0 win at Hamilton last month, six minutes stoppage time was added.
On Thursday night Croatian referee Ivan Bebek will be in charge, it’s highly likely than more than one minute of time will be added on beyond the 90.