You know that old croaking piece of “football wisdom” which says that decisions even themselves out over the course of a season? It is one of the most ludicrous defences of bad refereeing that there is, and it isn’t true.
It isn’t even remotely true.
For starters, some decisions are more consequential than others.
Tell me how a match winning offside goal in a cup semi-final “evens itself out”? Are there a rash of cup semi-finals coming up where we can benefit from a similarly fortuitous decision?
Nobody at Celtic is making a song and dance out of this, and I’m not about to start. We were well short of it on the day and their goal had been coming. But it was indisputably offside and with VAR it would not have counted.
That was an enormously important one, not a throw-in, not a wrongly awarded corner, not a goal early in a game we won comfortably.
Yet we’ve seen everyone from the hacks to former refs and opposing managers pour their hearts out and rend their garments over such decisions all season long.
How come a vastly more important “error” on the part of officials goes largely unremarked upon? How can it be that a cup semi-final winner isn’t the subject of such wide-ranging inquiries?
Because it has happened to us? Too simple an answer? I don’t think so.
It seems like a perfectly logical answer, considering that none of the decisions which have gone against us in this campaign have had half as much ink and attention as those we got.
This one won’t even itself out. This one won’t be balanced any more than the Josh Meekings incident was. Those decisions have cost first season Celtic bosses from potential trebles … but we’re the ones who get all the big calls, eah?
Madden and his officials has an abysmal match, which does not detract for one moment from how bad we actually were.
But there’s a reason why Celtic fans are not sitting waiting on the national debate over the decision or, indeed, any of the bizarre calls which were made on the day … we know better than to hope for even the justice of scrutiny and vindication.
This is the environment we operate in.
Madden had a great match TBF. He had exactly the match he intended. He refereed with his moral compass pointing exactly to his true North and the result was a just reward for a complete performance from Scotland’s No 1 whistler. To suggest he had a horror of a game is disingenuous. Madden achieved his goals. We got booted, mauled, crunched, kneed and elbowed without sanction. Tell me where Madden had a ‘bad’ game and I’ll show you a stalwart.
For heaven’s sake James, give it a rest. His hand was offside. VAR would have correctly ruled it out. But without VAR? It was virtually impossible to call. We were beaten by the better team on the day. Let’s hammer them in the final league derby and put some gloss on our league title win.
James isn’t moaning about the call so much as the lack of attention given to it by a biased media who, if it had been at the other end of the pitch, would have been foaming at the mouth calling for inquests.
I don’t think anyone can seriously say we were the better team on the day, but Madden’s performance was shocking and something needs done about it. Especially given his “Happy Easter” pish.
We got away with Julien’s in the LCF a few years ago. Now we’re even. It is what it is.
This. Exactly. And I’d rather get the benefit of a dodgy call that delivered a trophy.
There was no furore because it wasn’t offside. A bawhair doesn’t count in my eyes and the attacker gets the advantage when it is so close.
VAR would have ruled it offside. Referees might give advantage in that split second but VAR would show the reality and it wouldn’t be given. Or it shouldn’t be, but given that VAR in Scotland will be operated by ex-officials i.e. huns then it would have been a goal and a penalty to Sevco.
I think they should do away with the offside rule and bring in one for “poaching.” i.e. hanging about the opposition 20 yard box.
A dishonest VAR operative would have have used the VAR information provided, interpreted it and not given the offside decision. VAR is a machine not a decision maker.
If decisions like that are impossible to call its funny how Kyogo’s perfectly good onside goal away at Hearts was possible to call. Stinks of hunnery to me