Watch as Andy Halliday justifies brutal attack on Kyogo Furuhashi

Andy Halliday has offered up a ridiculous defence of Slobodan Rubezic for his brutal attack on Kyogo Furuhashi.

Knowing that he was arriving on the scene a split second too late the Aberdeen defender took full advantage to career through, knocking his opponent unconscious before his head thumped off the ground.

Seeing what he had done Rubezic decided to lie down for treatment, while he ‘recovered’ he was booked by Willie Collum with that decision backed up by John Beaton on VAR duty.

I’d like to say the images and video are horrible. They’re not good viewing and it’s really unfortunate to see Kyogo go off with an injury like that. You can see from the collision he was pretty much unconscious instantly so I hope he is well and comes back soon.

For me, we’re being harsh on the individual. My honest opinion is I don’t think it’s a red card. As a defender and as a player in the heat of the game and tempo of the game the ball is there to be won.

I think both players are quite blind sided in terms of the contact. Rubezic is coming from Kyogo’s right hand shoulder and has his eyes on the ball the whole time.

We’re being very harsh to say he’s aiming for Kyogo’s head and I think the collision is horrible to see. We’ve had four concussions at Hearts and it’s just part of a contact sport but I don’t think I can say more than that, I don’t think it’s a red card.

Being a player of very limited ability Halliday seems unable to distinguish between different levels of challenge.

There are a variety of ways to tackle with your boot, most players connect only with the ball but some strike an opponent on the shin or ankle. Halliday specialises on stamping on the Achilles of opponents knowing that his mate Bobby Madden won’t reach for any card.

It is perfectly possible to challenge for a header without knocking out your opponent but on the back of Sunday’s incident Scottish players have licence to inflict similar damage on Celtic players knowing that at worse they will get a yellow card.