First things first: Celtic played a phenomenal game at Tannadice on Sunday against fourth-place Dundee United, winning 3-0 easily with phenomenal play from Tom Rogic, ballet-like moves by David Turnbull and new kid Liam Scales slotting one in to seal the deal.
What could have been potentially a nailbiter with key players missing — the absence of Anthony Ralston, Jota, and Stephen Welsh casting a shadow over the game — ended up being a classic show of Angeball.
The Bhoys in Green made fairly easy work of a club that — unlike, say, Livingston and their 10-0-0 formation — actually went out of their way to challenge Celtic on the pitch with a pressing style of play. While it’s hard after a 3-0 defeat to heap glowing praise on Dundee United goalkeeper Benjamin Siegrist, he did play well to keep the score from being significantly higher; to say nothing of feeling completely awful for ex-Celt Charlie Mulgrew, now sadly toiling in obscurity for the Tangerines, who got beat so handily by Rogic on the first goal of the game.
But . . .
You would think that the officiating would be its cutting edge sharpest in a match where all eyes were on the Men in Black, especially after the razor-thin margin of an offside goal for Celtic on Thursday had caused such a huge scandal in Scottish football.
Sadly, any semblance of objectivity or sharpness on the part of the officiating crew at Tannadice, or anywhere else throughout the league for that matter, was virtually non-existent.
On Sunday, three offside calls that weren’t really offside — I guess that will show us. Countless fouls matching the non-calls on fouls.
And then there’s the aptly named Callum Butcher. Butcher: Is there an any more appropriate name for a hammerthrowing nobody who immediately should have been red-carded for his spikes-up marking of David Turnbull?
No doubt the Scottish Football Association’s Crawford Allen will have a busy week going round all the media outlets telling us why Butcher didn’t get a red card and why his linesmen had countless incorrect decisions against Celtic on Sunday, just like he did this past week after Kyogo Furuhashi’s goal against Heart of Maddenlothian . . . sorry, Heart of Midlothian.
Wait. Who am I trying to fool?
So, while I’m pleased with the results against Dundee United on Sunday, pleased with how Ange Postecoglou and the coaching staff arranged the limited personnel, and reassured by the uptempo style of play which makes us the team to beat in the Scottish Premiership, I don’t want to get complacent with our treatment by the officials, which is nothing short of abhorrent and, as the rest of the world outside Scotland sees it, hypocritical.
As such, it’s easy to take our foot off the gas — rhetorically speaking — when it comes to the malfeasance on the part of the officiating crew. This is where I think we should keep on it. Keep pointing out the errors, keep pointing out the injustices. Some might say, “Well, it has always been this way,” and that may be. But it doesn’t mean we have to accept it.
Call it out. Early and often. Every time it happens.
One more thing
Two, actually.
First: Ghirls will be ghirls.
The Ghirls in Green won their first piece of silverware in a decade — the Scottish Women’s Premier League Cup on Sunday, dragging out a 1-0 victory over perennial women’s power Glasgow City. Fran Alonso has really gotten the women’s team to fire on all cylinders this season, and it’s good to see that he’s getting results. Congrats, ghirls!
Second thing: Why isn’t Tom Rogic ever in any of the Celtic Christmas videos?
Anyway, we have the fascists from Real Betis visiting Celtic Park in a Europa League match on Thursday. It might be a good time to give some of the bhoys a rest and let the kids take the stage, so to speak.
Anyway, Mon the Hoops!
So send all the evidence from this and other matches to the SFA/ Sky/Daily Record etc. Flood their accounts. Get everyone who has a copy to do it. Moaning amongst ourselves won’t make any difference. Because before long a totally grotesque decision is going to be made against us. And probably more than one.
I don’t think there’s any alternative BUT to protest, to be honest. It may fall on deaf ears, as it has in the past, but still to remain silent is to be complicit. It would immensely help if the Celtic Board would grow a pair and actually start sticking up for the team, but that’s another topic that could deserve its own post.
Playing the youngsters won’t happen Larry. We can only choose players who are on the list submitted to EUFA in July for the EL qualifiers.
As someone old enough to remember refs like Bobby Davidson, Ian Flute, JRP Gordon, Hugh Dallas etc, it is indeed heartwarming to see that the current crop of Masons In The Black, living down to low standards set by their forefathers when it comes to implementing the laws of the game, without fear or favour.
Hail Hail.
There’s a simple solution to this issue, the SFA should implement a rule that only Celtic FC is judged by VAR…
It wouldn’t cost much cause they could mount the VAR camera on a dolly and wheel it up the other end at half time.
This would ensure that all these Celtic minded officials are kept in line….
HH
OK, first, VAR isn’t the answer for a few reasons, but mainly if the corrupt officials are making the call turn the decision over to corrupt officials in the booth . . . see where I’m going with this?
Excuse my ignorance mate but why are Real Betis fascists ?
History. Putting aside the fact that in Spain anything with “Real” (“Royal”) in the title smacks of elitism and loyalty to the crown, more recently at Real Betis we have this — ultras using Nazi and U.S. Confederate iconography in the stands.
https://imgur.com/a/ppCfEx3
I watched the Sportscene highlights programme last night and noticed that they have rediscovered their ‘white line generator’, which they used to analyse offside calls in the Celtic and Hearts games. Funny how we’ve never seen this analysis of the Kyogo goal. Are they afraid to go against the “miles offside” narrative established by the monster munch muncher?
Jrp Gordon now there’s a name from the past frank munro was right celtic should have walked off the park but big stien wouldn’t let them know