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After Last Week, There Was No Way Celtic Were Not Getting That Penalty Today.

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There are two ways to look at what VAR might do for Celtic.

We saw the evidence of what it might do against us last week, but as I’ve said right from the start, the thing about VAR is that decisions like that can no longer be simply brushed aside.

Everyone saw what that was last week, and everyone knew that the decision was very hard to defend.

When Ange went on the offensive last week and highlighted that we hadn’t had a spot kick since the season kicked off I knew that if we got a similar call to last week’s that we would get it beyond any shadow of a doubt.

That’s what VAR will do … it puts these people in a spot they can’t get out of.

One such call, they might get away with. Two in seven days? No chance.

I think in some ways this is the start of it. This is the start of officials being put under a different kind of pressure. Because as much as they might want to, these guys can’t pull this of nonsense any longer, not in the way that they used to. The really bad calls are going to get more scrutiny than they ever have and sooner or later refs will have to defend them.

VAR wasn’t the only difference maker today. Ange’s comments would have put the fear of God into certain people inside Hampden, those and the statistic about how it had been 200 days since we were last awarded a penalty in the league.

You see how easy it is to start pushing things our way when people speak up and speak out? You see how easy it is when the technology leaves these people nowhere to run? Without last week’s decision we might not have got that today. Without VAR’s presence we absolutely would not have because he certainly wasn’t giving the penalty without it. Without Ange’s comments and his biting sarcasm, I think we may not have got it anyway.

But this finally a coming together of pressure. Some of it applied by Celtic and some of it applied by the sheer fact that when every decision can be examined like this, in real time, “honest mistakes” are going to be exposed for what they are.

They got away with that shocker last week on the basis that the technology was new and they didn’t know that it was finally going to get Ange to snap. Once he did, I knew that if anything even remotely like it happened this week that we’d get our due.

It is important that we don’t rest on our laurels.

We may have them rattled here. We have to make sure that if we do that we keep the pressure on. If the technology is used fairly does anyone doubt that will benefit us? The objective is to make sure that’s the only way it’s used.

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4 comments

  • nawlite says:

    Not so sure, James. I think today’s penalty given was just a sop so they could show that Celtic do indeed get penalties. What’s most indicative of that is that the one NOT given last week was when the score was still 1-1 and the game therefore still in the balance, whereas today’s was happily given when the game was (almost) over and out of reach. It’s given today only so Celtic won’t have the ‘we never get them’ argument for a while so referees can more easily avoid giving more important ones in the future.

  • Martin says:

    I said on here last week that the first chance they get while we’re comfortably winning a game we were getting a penalty. Right on cue, our very next game….

    If you think this is because pressure is forcing the right calls I have a bridge to sell you. This is about removing that fairly stark statistic and starting the accusations of paranoia if we raise our heads above the parapet. This wasn’t about this decision which we got, or even last week’s which we didn’t. This was the groundwork for the next one, which we won’t get. And the one after that… And on and on.

  • Geoff says:

    I think it was harsh.
    Give them the decision as long as it’s not a game changer.
    Last week would have put us ahead at half time therefore no penalty.
    Don’t let GG take another one unless it’s for charity.

  • Denis Burns says:

    Not sure if Celtic would have got the penalty had the score been 0-0 but dead sure we would have been refused last week and on Sunday if there had been no VAR. Baby step progress I suppose but I’m 72 years old and time’s running out for me to see a good batch of neutral Scottish referees. Ach well maybe…..

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