Celtic could have played for another 90 minutes and probably not have scored from open play this afternoon at Kilmarnock.
They were very poor, did little constructive but regardless of that every club is still entitled for their fixtures to be governed by the Laws of the Game.
The only goal today came in the 59th minute with Celtic temporarily down to 10 men, had the match officials applied the Laws it would have been Kilmarnock playing a man short for the last half hour.
With Alan Muir giving every 50-50 to the home side Daniel Armstrong decided to leave one on Greg Taylor.
Incident that seen Taylor go off for treatment on a cut was caused by this elbow thrown by the Kilmarnock player. https://t.co/FuiCktn385 pic.twitter.com/XQo8lcEZWk
— Lint (@Zeshankenzo) August 20, 2023
In full view of the referee Armstrong arrived late on the scene to slide in on Taylor and aim an elbow at his opponents head.
He got lucky. He drew blood with Taylor suffering a cut ear with not even a yellow card dished out. Better still with Celtic a man short Killie exploited that space on the left to score the only goal of the game.
Muir saw exactly what Armstrong did, much like when Josh Meekings handled a Leigh Griffiths header at Hampden in 2015. Eight years later he is still collecting the match fees and rattling up the expenses and mileage from the SFA on his trips from Aberdeen.
On VAR duty Don ‘anything goes’ Robertson is notorious, the SFA would have been better sticking Kris Boyd in front of the monitor today.
Two seasons ago Robertson allowed Calum Butcher off with a yellow for a brutal lunge on David Turnbull at Tannadice that was reviewed and upgraded to a red card.
A month later at Alloa, Yosuke Ideguchi’s Celtic career was effectively over following a similar attack from Mouhamed Niang that was upgraded to a red retrospectively.
With Peter Lawwell in the Celtic boardroom the SFA can be assured that all refereeing decisions will be accepted with a shrug of the shoulders, that’s the bottom line, the cost of 2012.
In the absence of a yellow card, the Killie player must be due a retrospective red?
Missed the replays during the game – but that was just nasty, and a very deliberate
elbow on Taylor.
Yes, VAR officials – along with match officials – fail the players
and the paying customers yet again.
[And are the linesmen restricted only to flagging for offsides these days?!]
Refuse to Pay your Sky TV subscription then Bob?!
Sorry Joe, but we done plenty of moaning over the past 2 seasons about the cheating officials, and yet we managed to win nearly everything before us.
Not going to make such an issue about the likes, just because we’ve lost a cup game as a form of excuse for doing so.
We created only 2 goalscoring opportunities in nearly 100 minutes of football.
We have become so use to creating over 5 big scoring opportunities in nearly every Scottish match over the last 2 seasons, and that would be regarded as a fairly poor day also?
In turn that made the officials near enough redundant and of far less relevant within a game on most occasions.
Rodgers has been around the Scottish game long enough to how how the cheating scum operate, so should know far better about getting a team prepared far better than what we saw today.
Enough players within the team who know how these cheats operate, yet still played into there hands by letting them become relevant within the game.
Did we lose due to the cheating officials?
Or was it more our tactical approach, team set up, and applying the instructions a team is supposed to be playing to, tempo of our play etc etc etc?
Fairly easy one to choose from between the two, I would say?
Thought at the time they should have looked at the incident as a potential red card .