Controversial VAR referee awaits Celtic at Pittodrie

Controversial VAR referee, Steven McLean has been appointed to take charge of Celtic’s match against Aberdeen this coming weekend. On Saturday, the Hoops travel to Pittodrie to take on Jim Goodwin and his team in the first match since we stopped for the World Cup in Qatar.

The whistler has never been shy of controversy when it comes to Celtic and one of his most recent debacles came against Heart of Midlothian at Tynecastle back in October. It was a highly dubious display from McLean in the VAR room and he refused to allow the man in the middle that day (another Ibrox associate) a chance to look at a clear handball from Michael Smith.

The SFA have revealed on their website that McLean will indeed be the incumbent for Saturday’s game. He will be joined by assistants, Calum Spence and Craig Ferguson, whilst the Fourth Official will be Alan Newlands. Meanwhile, the men entrusted with operating the VAR technology will be Kevin Clancy and Sean Carr.

Ange Postecoglou and Celtic will be hoping for no more repeats of the highly contentious decision making that went against us, during the initial introduction of this new technology in the first part of the Scottish Premiership season. Some were quite ridiculous and the use of it hindered the flow of the game, which Ange complained about.

Hopefully there is no controversy on Saturday and it is a cracking game. Celtic will be raring to go after so long without a competitive match for a lot of the players. It will be interesting to see Ange’s starting XI, come lunchtime on 17 December. The weather up at Pittodrie will be bitter if these past few days are anything to go by. We must ensure we don’t let anything like VAR or refereeing get in our way, by blowing the opposition away with our football.

It’s getting closer!

Paul Gillespie

About Author

I'm a Garngad Bhoy through and through. My first ever Celtic game was a friendly against Italian side Parma at Celtic Park, in 2002. Currently a student of English Literature and Education at the University of Strathclyde for my sins. Favourite game would be a toss up between beating Manchester United with that Naka freekick, or the game against the Oldco when Hesselink scored in the dying seconds. I'm still convinced Cal Mac is wasted playing that far back.

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