It’s not the first time- Tom Boyd hits out at latest VAR decision

Tom Boyd has seen the movie a few times before.

On Day One of VAR at Tynecastle Michael Smith raised his hand to connect with a James Forrest pass, there was a brief pause when the ball went out of play, VAR Steven McLean was in contact with referee Nick Walsh before play carried on without even a look at the monitor.

At Celtic Park, contrived penalties were awarded against Alexandro Bernabei and Matt O’Riley when Dundee United and Ross County were the visitors.

Last night attention switched to the other end of the park with Nicky Devlin escaping without a penalty when he used his elbow to block a long range shot from Reo Hatate.

The real issue came in the 71st minute. After Liel Abada netted there was an unwelcome pause as VAR Steven Kirkland intervened, drew in Euan Anderson, a four minute delay resulted before the ‘goal’ was disallowed.

Listening in to Boyd on Celtic TV, the Daily Record reports:

What does the fourth (VAR) official know that the referee doesn’t know on the field of play? What has he decided? Look it’s an offside decision.

He is either offside or he’s not. What they are trying to say is it has to be a deliberate pass.

In my opinion the Livingston defender has went for that ball and made a mess of it, right? So he has deliberately tried to play the ball.

It’s not the first time referees and VAR don’t look favourably on Celtic when trying to get the right decision. They are trying to make the decision if that boy has deliberately headed that ball back, and it’s the rule that he has played him on. He has tried to header that one

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In the 20 remaining minutes of the match no Hawkeye image was published to explain why the goal was disallowed.