Douglas Ross will be in the spotlight at Celtic Park on Saturday as the Tory leader returns to high profile fixtures thanks to his good friends Crawford Allan and Ian Maxwell.
Judging by recent television appearances the chin-less wonder is carrying some additional timber which should be tested by the speed of Celtic’s attacking moves.
Ross has been on the line for four Premiership matches this season but will be tasked with keeping up with play in his first Celtic appointment since December 2020 in the depths of lockdown.
Flying the flag on the other side of the park will be Alastair Mather who caught the attention of Celtic fans during the October win away to St Johnstone.
The Aberdeen based assistant was incredibly consistent with borderline offside decisions, whoever was breaking through for Celtic the flag would go up, effectively providing St Johnstone with an extra layer of defensive protection.
James Forrest called offside running through on goal v St Johnstone from yesterday’s game. pic.twitter.com/iicFeE2FDt
— Lint (@Zeshankenzo) October 9, 2022
Despite his eagle-eyed observations when it came to offside calls the same assistant mysteriously missed the swinging arm of Connor McLennan connecting with the ball in stoppage time, denying Giorgos Giakoumakis a run on goal and setting up a St Johnstone break down the left.
Steven McLean, whose brother started his career as a Murray Park starlet will referee Saturday’s match, almost eight years on from his OTT performance in the 2015 Scottish Cup semi-final between Celtic and Inverness Caley Thistle.
Delay in flagging offside until he realises Jamesy is clean through and stick on to score.
— Martin Mc1967 (@Martinmc1967) October 10, 2022
Genuinely think that linesman was just given a flag and was told to wave it whenever someone crossed halfway. By the way, officials are absolutely rotten from top to bottom here. Not biased, just absolutely rotten.
— Marko (@Markobhoy) October 9, 2022
Seriously Celtic should be contesting these ludicrous refereeing decisions and not only in their own games…..the pen Walsh awarded at ibrox yesterday was funking horrendous……I think that is something like 60 penalties Tavernier has taken for Rsngers…only in Scotland!!
— Everysecondfriday (@Everysecondfri3) October 9, 2022
Wee baldy guy has amazing vision
— Skippy (@JohannMurdoch) October 9, 2022
It was a tight call, but why was the game stopped that point? I thought the rule was to play on until that phase was over? So even if VAR was present, he didn’t get the goal scoring opportunity.
— Gustavo1 (@Gustavo03916302) October 10, 2022
That’s just a guess
— Cautious Dave (@cautiousdave) October 9, 2022