Since his first domestic match, ironically against Hearts away, Ange Postecoglou has been the most diplomatic of manager’s when it came to discussing refereeing issues.
In that opening match the new Celtic boss had witnessed a perfectly good goal from Liel Abada disallowed for offside while Andy Halliday escaped any colour of card from Bobby Madden despite raking his studs down the back of Callum McGregor’s heel.
Neil Lennon never really needed an invite to discuss refereeing issues but in contrast his successor at Celtic had almost adopted a ‘turn the other cheek’ philosophy to any controversial decisions.
And then VAR was introduced. The day before it came into use Postecoglou said that he was ambivalent to it, after three doses of Scottish VAR the Celtic boss has changed his viewpoint.
Over a period of 15 days referee Nick Walsh has gone from dismissing Michael Smith’s handball from a James Forrest pass to being the VAR that highlighted the ball striking Alexandro Bernabei’s arm in the match against Dundee United.
After 15 quiet months from the Australian it has taken 15 days of Scottish VAR to transform the formerly diplomatic Celtic boss.
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It seems like any time the ball touches your hand in the box – apart from when you are playing Hearts away – it’s a penalty.
Lol top quality SARCASM at it’s best from the best manager in Scotland.
We don’t even have VAR in Scotland ,working at its full capacity ! We’ve got the old 50 Bob version compared to the full super deluxe ,top,of the range , technology used by the English and other Continental countries . This was admitted by Kenny Clark ,who is one of the head bummers of the new system of refereeing ! We don’t have as many angles to scrutinize contentious VAR decisions,he said yesterday ,meaning the cameras they use are cheap and inferior .How can they make the right call if they don’t have the proper equipment to do so …..? Only in Scotland.