GLASGOW, SCOTLAND - NOVEMBER 02: Referee Nick Walsh (centre) awards Rangers a penalty for a handball by Celtic's Anthony Ralston during a Premier Sports Cup Semi-Final match between Celtic and Rangers at Hampden Park, on November 02, 2025, in Glasgow, Scotland. (Photo by Alan Harvey/SNS Group via Getty Images)
Celtic overcame the combined efforts of Nick Walsh, Steven McLean and Andrew Dallas to book a place in the final of the League Cup by overcoming Sevco 3-1 in the Hampden semi-final.
Walsh delivered an outstanding example of game management. Every challenge by a Celtic player resulted in a free kick. Every foul brought a yellow card.
On Monday morning Walsh will be back at his day job of working on the education and fitness of the Murray Park starlets at Boclair High School, Bearsden.
Outside of Scotland such a conflict of interest would never be allowed.
Under the SFA, under Willie Collum and with Celtic on mute since July 2012 Walsh has flourished.
He knows the script. Collum is the perfect example of how to climb the ladder to lucrative pay days domestically and internationally.
Nick Walsh today btw…
— HL7 (@King7Henrik) November 2, 2025
After 20 minutes Nicky Raskin sent the ball into his own net.
On VAR duty Steven McLean and Andrew Dallas produced the most dubious thick felt pen lines to disallow the ‘goal’ for offside.
SHAMEFUL
The heel of Nasser Djiga played Ben Nygren onside. The manual VAR system used by the SFA allows McLean and Dallas between 30-100cm leeway. They weren’t going to miss.
McLean refereed the 2015 Scottish Cup semi-final between Celtic and Inverness Caley Thistle. His brother Brian is a former Murray Park starlet who mistakenly thought that he could play for Northern Ireland.
Andrew is the son of Hugh Dallas who resigned from the SFA in 2010 after sharing his hatred of Catholics online.
Celtic took the lead in the 25th minute from Johnny Kenny.
STATS SAY IT ALL
In the 80th minute Bojan Miovski pushed Tony Ralston over, as he fell to the ground the ball hit the arm of the Celtic defender.
Walsh pointed to the penalty spot, McLean and Dallas agreed with their colleague.
Throughout the remainder of the match and into extra-time Walsh delivered free kicks on demand.
Celtic had 51% possession of the ball. The free kick count against the hoops was 26-13. The yellow card count was 6-3 against Celtic.
Walsh, McLean and Dallas won’t be anywhere near the World Cup Finals next summer. They won’t get any Champions League matches from UEFA this season or next.
Real VAR will be in use on Thursday when Celtic travel to Midtjylland in the Europa League.
Offside?
Away tae fuck pic.twitter.com/1tzpHX2iCG— Lenny Bruce (@LennyBr64521062) November 2, 2025
And like a broken record,
this is when our club should be kicking up a fuss
about the continued, unacceptably poor match officiating.
Complain after we’ve won, so it can’t be twisted as ‘sour grapes’.
A competent Board would have addressed this long ago, (and also any lingering ‘5WA’ implications from 2012?)
Listened to it on the the radio at work, literally every few minutes felt like chewing the fat moments comin on, the commentary just made u want to rip the radio out of the dash…of course Assgard was nvr a sending off but Trusty’s wee accidental pulling away tap to the heid was, and don’t even mention the meltdown over Ralston.
Utterly sick of the bias week in week out at the beeb.
But, as we all know…..just beat the bastards…..thats all we’ve got…just beat the cheating bastards….there’s so so much more satisfaction knowing you’ve bested them even with all their underhand tactics.
The change of mentality seems to have had an effect even in the short time frame.
Well done the bhoys, O’Neill and Maloney.
Brought some pride back and stuck Barron’s prediction right back up where the sun don’t shine.
Wee Billy boy Dodds on the BBC Scottish version co commentating was moaning 25 minutes into the second half still disgusted that Trusty was not sent off in the first half . He was babbling about the lack of justice in his alleged neutral gig from his sponsor – the BBC ! God , the sadness in his voice was palpably painful for him to talk properly . Then the good old BBC decided to talk about theRangers defeat rather than the Celtic victory , post game ….oh well , maybe one of these days the national broadcaster will surprise us all with a positive attitude towards Celtic especially after securing another cup final appearance ?
All you’ll see in the media is how we got all the calls
and wee Danny getting praised for the second half
Valentines @ 6.23pm…
I was out but it must’ve been some magical Schadenfreude on Scummy BBC Scotland today !
Really enjoyed the game. Both teams went at it, celtic from the off and them once they were down to 10. Think the offside goal was a poor call, should have stood. Red card right call. Trusty yellow correct although I would have liked him to be asked by conny in interview if it was an accident. Ralston pen very harsh. Think just about every yellow was justified but Walsh did seem to give free kicks everytime one of them dropped down but that is widespread across football tbf. History regurgitated the 3 1 of 2001 sf just as I suspected although ladbrokes got to keep my 10spot! Beautiful moments for the goal scorers today.
Still pumped them with VAR & Walsh assisting the Huns.
I was looking forward to watching the highlights tonight.
BBC must be fukin raging so bad that they pulled sportscene off.
Still pumped them with all the help from VAR & Walsh.
Billy Boys Channel bbc not showing sportscene èh we wonder why was it because it was prim ch they never showed but we all no why dierty biased scum bastards thats why.so get it up everyone of them and hope they dont sleep after that and suffer more pain of the champions of scotland. Celtic football club 1888.