While Celtic and Hearts were serving up a great advert for Scottish football last night, and Ange Postecoglou was keen to point out “Ultimately this game of football was decided by our performance, not by a referee.” The same couldn’t be said however over at Ibrox as theRangers were once again in need of some officiating assistance to help them stutter past Livingston at Ibrox.
Scott Arfield got the winning goal, but the main assist on the night came from the man in black -quelle surprise – as Ibrox youngster Alex Lowry passed the ball back to Alan McGregor with his arm and referee Don Robertson, with an excellent view of the incident from the edge of the box, fulfilled his paymaster orders and ignored Livingston’s claims for a penalty. It’s amazing what an eight-point letter to the SFA can do to get officials back on message is it not?
Chris Sutton has been at his sarcastic best pointing this out on social media with his comment ‘He nearly caught it🤣🤣…never a penalty’ summing up the blatancy of the incident.
He nearly caught it🤣🤣…never a penalty https://t.co/pjmeaBxh9Y
— Chris Sutton (@chris_sutton73) January 26, 2022
Don Robertson is certainly a man under scrutiny at the moment, and after a shocking refereeing performance in Celtic’s fourth round Scottish Cup win over Alloa, where he failed to send off midfielder Mouhamed Niang for an out of control ‘tackle’ on Yosuke Ideguchi, you’d think Robertson might be keeping a low profile.
Not a bit of it, instead he was straight back to business by ensuring yet another ‘honest mistake’ allows theRangers to get three points in the bag despite making a dreadfully slow start following the resumption of football after the winter break.
Try as they might however, Celtic are motoring and theRangers are faltering, and refereeing ‘mistakes’ will only get them so far. After all, as the great Jock Stein said “I think it is important to win a match, but I think what is even more important is the manner in which you win.”
That appears, as ever, to be something theRangers are far from concerned with, instead by hook or by (a) crook they’ll take all the help they can get, and they certainly got it in spades from Don Robertson last night.
Next Wednesday is shaping up nicely for a day of reckoning for the one time title winners.
Niall J
Celtic are motoring!!! Really? Dear god how we came away with all three points is beyond me! It’s time our second half performances were called out, we are so slow from the kick off in the second half of games last night our passing was terrible and it allowed hearts back into the game. We made it hard for ourselves. The third goal in games like that is crucial, a missed penalty saved our bacon. Oh! And poor referees will win them the league if it is allowed to carry on as we will drop points sooner or later. Hope I’m wrong.
Yes,it’s beyond you,so,don’t comment.
Hearts didn’t come back into it.the linesman gave them the chance to up their game their goal was well offsides.