Celtic’s new-Bhoy Alistair Johnston was at Hampden today for an SPFL promotional engagement and spoke to the mainstream media about his debut and in particular his thoughts of the decision taken by the officials – referee John Beaton and VAR operator Willie Collum not to give Celtic a penalty kick after Connor Goldson’s Save of the Season.
Johnston’s not been at Celtic long enough to appreciate the kind of decisions that have gone against Celtic since VAR was introduced and there’s no point in the Canada World Cup star to sit down to review the penalties that have been awarded against theRangers in the Scottish Premiership this season before or after VAR was introduced, because there’s none to see.
However Johnston was in no doubt that Celtic should have been awarded a spot-kick at Ibrox on Monday afternoon.
“It happened so quick you couldn’t really tell, then we are waiting for the throw and they said he was looking at a potential handball,” the Celtic full-back said, as reported by Sky Sports. “That kind of made sense because something did not feel right about what happened in there. Then after the match you obviously see the replay of it, and I think it’s hard to argue that is a natural hand position.
“As a defender especially you put your hands up there (and) you generally run the risk. So for me obviously I thought it was a pen, obviously I’m a little biased here but it is what it is.
“At the same time it’s a 90 minute match, and that is just one decision that was made. There are so many other moments in that match where we could have done better, where you are not putting the end of a match in someone else’s control.
“There are moments where we could have done so much more. We don’t look at it as VAR screwed us. We look at it as, yeah, it was a decision that went against us but there will be plenty that hopefully go for us, and more that go against us in the future. That is the name of the game.
“All we ask for is consistency,” Johnston concluded.
