Tom English has performed a masterclass in white-washing over the refereeing issues at Pittodrie last night.
The introduction of VAR saw a massive spike in the award of penalties, in their first five VAR fixtures Celtic had four penalties awarded against them including the ridiculous decisions against Alexandro Bernabei and Matt O’Riley.
To the surprise of absolutely no-one there is a club that has been unaffected by VAR, now their players have the confidence of knowing that they are immune to the laws being applied against their opponents.
In 17 matches this season no penalties have been awarded against the Ibrox side under Giovanni van Bronckhorst and Micky Beale, not that you’ll find that mentioned by BBC Scotland.
Panicked by the presence of Duk, James Tavernier raised his right arm to divert a cross onto the post- no penalty and no mention by English.
Connor Goldson leaning forward to use his right arm to deflect the ball into Scot Arfield’s path for the winning goal. No free kick and nothing in English’s thoughtful summary of the match, Willie Collum and Greg Aitken don’t get a mention from a reporter that likes to jump on controversies that suit him, especially if it involves his beloved Hearts.
On the BBC website, the reporter affectionately known as House Paddy throughout Pacific Quay writes:
Just when the post-mortems for Rangers’ title prospects were being written, just as Celtic were about to be declared champions again by the court of public opinion – including most Rangers fans, you suspect – Scott Arfield ripped up the script and swallowed it whole.
Two late, late – and we should stress this – late goals turned near-certain defeat into impossible victory.
Arfield came off the bench and was a relentless menace. Even before his goals he had chances. Even before he utterly sickened Aberdeen and their stellar operators – the outstanding Connor Barron in particular – he gave them due warning that he might come up with something.
It was like Houdini. The great man used to explain what he was going to do. He was going to be cast in chains, handcuffed, thrown into a water tank sealed with reinforced steel – and then he was going to break free. Nobody bought it in the beginning but Harry always delivered.
Nobody probably bought the idea that Rangers were going to pull off their own act of escapology, but they did. Credit Arfield’s ferocious determination, credit Rangers’ self-belief amid almost overwhelming evidence that they were not going to save themselves.
If you’re an Aberdeen fan in pain you’ll be talking about their defending at the end. It was painful. Deeper and deeper, more desperate by the minute, jumpier by the second. They put so much into it, but a match lasts as long as it lasts, not as long as you want it to last. They got done, but what drama, what an astonishing end-game.
English does revel in the excitement of a good news story.
Should Celtic push SFA for transparency by publishing VAR reports?
Yes, VAR without explanations is pointless
No, let the teething troubles settle down
Aberdeen penalty shout for Tavernier handball.
???? pic.twitter.com/Fd2QDzMcbG— Lint (@Zeshankenzo) December 20, 2022
— Celtschmerz (@Celtschmerz) December 20, 2022
Blame the Celtic board and dont fund the BBC.
The board needs to grow a pair and question these decisions. If it was the mob across town they’d be howling at the moon over a lot less. As for the BBC (Bluenose Broadcasting Cabal) Sevco don’t expect anything else and certainly not from the Stab City soup taker Uncle Tom English.
It’s also been noticeable for a while that the SPFL’s own highlights of games on YouTube are ‘censored’.
If I go to YouTube see a contentious sevco decision/non-decision, the SPFL video – typically – either omits the incident entirely, or shows it without any replay, as though there was nothing to see here.
🙁
we all know what is going the corruption in this leauge is to help the bigots and the dont give a toss what people think same as the blue media all in with the corruption but again this scottish football.
There were seriously bad incidents at Pittodrie last night where missiles were tossed between Aberdeen and ‘the other team’s ‘ fans , during the game ! It was mentioned once in passing ,without any further discussions about health and safety in the ground afterwards …. CONVENIENTLY…Plus the old ‘Billy Boys ‘ dirge in full orchestrated choir from the visiting fans … As Beale would say … Nuffink sed abat at …