There were two major incidents in Celtic’s 2-1 victory over Motherwell at Paradise this afternoon that referee John Beaton, and his linesmen, got horribly wrong today.
Two ‘honest mistakes’ if you like.
The first one. A clear hand ball by the Motherwell player in the box where Abada crosses the ball and the Motherwell player sticks his hand up to his face to block it,
As clear a hand ball and penalty as you will ever see.
But John Beaton and his linesman looking right at the incident just yards away don’t give it.
His hand wasn’t in a natural position at his side, he literally stuck it up in the air near his face to stop the ball from hitting him. It was a shocking decision.
And then towards the end of the game Celtic are reduced to ten men after captain Callum McGregor is sent off.
It was a professional foul but Stephen Welsh was covering and therefore it was not a clear and obvious goal scoring opportunity which it needs to be to be a red card. But despite Beaton and the linesman seeing Welsh back covering, he decided to still send off McGregor and reduce Celtic to ten men for the last five minutes of injury time.
Ange even said himself in his post match interview that we had a man back covering, so hopefully this is one that Celtic will look to appeal, because it’s clear that a red card was wrongly given in this instance.
Take a look at the two shocking decisions below.
Handball and penalty, 100% agree. Shameful yet predictable “mistake”.
But anyone who argues against CalMac’s red doesn’t have a clue what they’re talking about. That’s a clear red 10 times out of 10. Welsh is nowhere near providing cover, and even if he was closer… So what? That’s not part of the rules. The Motherwell player could’ve chipped that ball in with his first touch as Hart was so far out. Welsh was not getting to the ball before him. Therefore DOGSO. Red card. It’s utterly depressing how much ill informed crap gets spouted about the laws of the game. I suppose I’ll give you some credit at least for not saying “last man”, that meaningless phrase that just shows the ignorance of the person spouting it.
That was a great red card to take yesterday. Otherwise we were looking at a 2-2 draw. I’d rather lose a player for one game than drop 2 points needlessly at home to Motherwell. Those 2 points could be season defining.