You need the refereeing decisions to go in your favour- angry Livi boss Martindale hits out after Celtic defeat

David Martindale has claimed that two of Celtic’s goals in the win over Livingston should have been disallowed. 

After drawing a blank in the two previous clashes between the sides Celtic made no mistake in a 3-1 win that restores their three point advantage at the top of the Premiership table. 

There were mistakes made by the referee in the goals from Daizen Maeda and Nicky Devlin (OG) but they were early in the play with Livingston having plenty of opportunities to clear their lines before the ball hit the net. 

The first goal came from a corner wrongly awarded to Celtic, across the Scottish game this weekend there will have been plenty of similar incidents. A Livingston defender could have prevented Carl Starfield getting a header, Max Stryjek could have pushed the ball away from Daizen Maeda or there could have been a home defender tracking the Celtic striker. It happens. 

For the second goal the ball may have struck Tom Rogic on the arm, a Livingston defender got a touch on a cross from James Forrest before Devlin chested the ball into his own net. Again, in almost every match a handball decision won’t be given.  

I fink for the first two goals if I’m being honest that big refereeing decisions went against us. 

And saying that it makes the game a lot harder for us but I fought that Celtic were clinical today. I fought that it was a top, top performance on and off the ball, I fought that they were fantastic in their transitions on and off the ball. 

That is probably the Celtic that we are more accustomed to watching. I fought that albeit they were very, very good but I fink that the first two goals gave us a massive mountain to climb and there’s two refereeing decisions that for me are disappointing from my point of view. 

You need a wee bit of fortune and luck to be on your side but you need the refereeing decisions to go in your favour as well and I don’t fink that we got them on the first two goals.

I’m not standing here saying that we deserved anything more from the game, I genuinely don’t but I fink that over the piece Celtic deserved the three points if I’m honest but the two refereeing decisions probably don’t help us and give us a massive mountain at 2-0. 

Nick Walsh refereed today’s match, Scotland is the highest rated league in UEFA that doesn’t use VAR technology.