Even with the option of naming nine substitutes Liam Scales was unable to make it onto the Celtic bench at Sunday’s Scottish Cup semi-final.
The left-sided defender was signed from Shamrock Rovers in August but hasn’t played any football since the Europa Conference defeat away to Bodo Glimt on February 24.
Josip Juranovic and Greg Taylor are Celtic’s first choice full-backs with the Croatian able to play in either position.
At Hampden yesterday both full-backs were injured with the hoops playing extra-time with two players out of position in those slots, Stephen Welsh on the right and Tony Ralston on the left.
Celtic’s substitute list yesterday contained two central defenders, Welsh and Chris Jullien, plus four midfielders David Turnbull, Matt O’Riley, James McCarthy and Yosuke Ideguchi. Ange Postecoglou opted against having cover for Scales.
Starting eight matches and scoring twice the Irishman appeared to be making some progress in his Celtic career but no minutes since February and overlooked entirely for yesterday’s match poses questions about the future prospects of the 23-year-old.
Very subtle refereeing yesterday. Allow Celtic players to get knocked about and pick up injuries! Disrupt the flow of play whenever possible. Making up rules as you go along in order to infuriate Celtic players and thus affect their concentration.
Madden should be absolutely ashamed for abusing his position. There is no professionalism here. We all know what you are about Mr Madden and what you stand for. Your social media message gave you away last night. How shameful!
There are plenty of good referees outside of the bigoted hotbed of Lanarkshire, yet they have little chance of officiating these games. The group of referees should represent the whole country. Celtic fans simply want a neutral referee, not a biased one, or a Celtic supporting one.
Editor: Celtic have allowed Madden to progress with the Lawwell family putting him on Open Goal to show what a lovely, everyday guy he is. As you say decent aspiring referees elsewhere don’t get a look in, how strange that Lanarkshire is so prolific at producing referees.
Llam isn’t a left back though, he has just been used there. His best position is on the left side of a back three. I’d still have him over Greg Taylor anyway though.