After his VAR drama on Saturday night there is no respite for Don Robertson.
On Wednesday night he will again be involved with St Mirren, this time at Ibrox.
Against Celtic on Saturday the Paisley side benefitted from the decision making of one of Scotland’s leading match officials.
Craig McLeish will know not to count on similar good fortune at Ibrox.
The consolation that Celtic fans can take is that Robertson shouldn’t be involved in their League Cup tie at Ibrox on Sunday.
Match appointments are made one week in advance.
Only someone with the judgement of Willie Collum would put the same official in the spotlight for successive matches.
Last week Collum appointed Duncan Nicolson to referee Celtic v Aberdeen followed three days later by Motherwell’s visit to Ibrox.
So far, over five rounds of fixtures the SFA have used 13 different referees for Premiership matches.
ROBERTSON LOVES THE SPOTLIGHT AND ATTENTION
On VAR duty on Saturday Robertson came up with three difficult to justify decisions.
Firstly he refused to intervene when Liam Scales was pushed in front of goal as he moved towards a corner kick. Later in the match Scales scored from a similar move.
Robertson’s involvement would only get stronger.
He chose the still frame and imposed the VAR lines to disallow what would have been a first half equaliser from Camilo Duran.
At the post match media conference it was put to Martin O’Neill that the lines hadn’t been calibrated.
Robertson had an even more telling intervention to come. One that overstepped the mark for all VAR protocols.
For whatever reason Robertson was unable to produce VAR lines when Celtic substitute Shim Mheuka put the ball in the net.
With no evidence Robertson ordered match referee Ryan Lee to look at a still image. Naturally Ryan obliged his senior official by disallowing the Celtic ‘goal’.
Tomorrow the SFA will publish the match officials for the weekend League Cup quarter-finals.
