There was a decision that went against Celtic in our 3-0 Scottish Cup victory over Hearts at the weekend which has just been conveniently forgotten about and in fact, was deliberately brushed over on the day by Michael Stewart on commentary.
I’m talking about the penalty that Celtic should have been awarded when our Canadian full-back Alistair Johnston was wiped out inside the 18 yard box.
It was 1-0 at the time with the game still well in the balance and it could have ended very differently had Hearts managed to equalise, but thankfully for us, we were able to make it 2-0 just before the half time interval and get a third on 80 minutes to seal the victory.
Certain pundits in the media like Keevins like to tell us we cannot complain about decisions like these because “you won anyway”, but that’s just utter nonsense. If anything, it makes our argument EVEN STRONGER when we highlight incidents like these, because they can’t hit back at us calling it sour grapes or being sore losers.
Paul and Kenny discussed the incident on Celtic Fans TV, and were none too impressed by Michael Stewart’s comments at the time:
Paul: “I want to talk about that penalty shout, because it was just kind of brushed aside.”
“I was surprised that there wasn’t more made of it, because Johnston crosses it, he gets inside the box and Halliday’s there to clatter him.”
“Michael Stewart seemed to think there was no material impact on Johnston, apart from the fact he got wiped out after he crossed the ball!”
Kenny: “So if there’s no material impact on someone, you can just attack them? What a ludicrous…”
“I mean, I actually think Michael Stewart’s one of the more sensible pundits, but that’s an absolute ludicrous assessment of why it’s not a penalty. How on earth does he know that the ball wouldn’t have gone in more accurately had he not been clattered?”
“We never scored from it. He was wiped out. It was so clear cut, I don’t really know if there’s much value in us trying to discuss whether it should have been a penalty or not, it was so obvious.”
I agree 100% with the guys here. Stewart was talking out of his backside, and not for the first time in the last 18 months or so when it comes to Celtic.
I used to respect Stewart and like Kenny thought he was one of our more sensible pundits, but he does come out with far too many stupid statements like the one on Sunday for me to take him seriously anymore.
You can check out the full post match breakdown here: Hearts 0-3 Celtic | LIVE Full-Time Reaction – YouTube
