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Celtic Would Probably Win A Callum McGregor Appeal. We Shouldn’t Make One Though.

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When Callum McGregor was shown the red card at the weekend, I sighed with relief. After the full time whistle, mind you, but for that incident and its consequences.

Those consequences aren’t as bad as they might at first appear to be.

Callum needs a break. I’m not worried about how he gets it.

A match sitting in the stands will do him good, and it will do this team good.

We need the captain firing on all cylinders. We are burning that guy out by putting him out on the pitch every week. It’s not as if he’s complaining, but his body might be and if it’s not it’s going to be at some point.

Captains give everything to clubs, but it’s not fair to ask this guy to risk his long term health by having him play 50 games a campaign. Nobody can take that kind of punishment, it’s just impossible to do.

He got very little pre-season rest because of stupid internationals. He will get no rest during the World Cup although Scotland won’t be there, because we’re taking him out to Australia where he’ll be expected to represent us in the friendlies.

Ange wants to keep him in the team, I get it.

Other managers did the same with Scott Brown although he was several years older than Callum is right now.

And whilst players can continue their careers far longer than they’ve been able to before, that’s not a good enough reason for never giving this guy a rest. We have a squad which we can rotate.

It seems only right that every player benefit from that, and that includes our leader.

I think we should take this one on the chin and give the guy a break. It’s not fair, but neither is playing him every week without a rest. Ange has options, and we should be utilising those.

No player in this team is immune to exhaustion and we have so many games in such a short space of time that we should be squeezing every bit out of this squad that we can.

Callum deserves the break. The club should see this as an opportunity to give him one, and although it shouldn’t take a ban to bring that about I suspect he’ll take it either way.

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  • S Thomas says:

    Best red card you’ll see all season, this is why he is the captain. He got clapped off the park, and rightly s. Murderwell deserved Jack shit from the match, and it would have been a travesty if they did get anything. They played anti football. Yes I agree James, a wee break will do him good, and no disrespect but we are playing St Johnstone on Saturday, and maybe give the boy Mooy a chance, to see what he can do.

  • John says:

    I disagree on this one James. Calmac is the most important cog I our wheel and unless he feels he needs a rest then Ange should have him in the team. Not sure about winning an appeal on red card. It pains me to say it but Beaton might just have got this one right. What concerned me most was the sight of Beaton sprinting towards Cal to flash the red card. When have you ever seen him breaking into a jog never mind a sprint. He doesn’t even try to hide his anti Celtic bias.
    Even worse was his refusal to give us a stonewall pen when Lammie deliberately handled the ball and should have been off. Our club needs to get the finger out and start calling this cheating b*st*rd out

  • Martin says:

    On what planet does CalMac win an appeal? That was a completely correct red card decision. If that sort of thing went to appeal and won, it would make a mockery of the entire game. I’m sitting here incredulous today as fan site after fan site claims it wasn’t a red card! Is there a new strain of covid that turns people into complete fools? That was as cler cut a DOGSO red as you’ll see.

    And it was a brilliant piece of leadership by our captain to take it. We could afford a few minutes without him much easier than we could afford to have the game level again.

  • Tony B says:

    Appeal it citing the precedent set by Robertson at sevco, a much more blatant sending off which was not addressed by the Compliance Officer.

    Watch the bastards try to wriggle out of it. If they uphold the sending off, we can legitimately refer to double standards in refereeing. If they overturn it, rest Callum anyway as a big fuck you to the masons in black and at the SFA/SPFL.

    • Martin says:

      Tony, the Compliance Officer didn’t address it as it wasn’t violent conduct. Robertson didn’t see it (allegedly). But you can’t go about rescinding legitimate red cards on the basis that “at a different game a different referee made a mistake so this correct decision shouldn’t stand.” That’s ridiculous.

      We don’t improve standards by complaining when the ref gets it right, FFS.

      • Tony B says:

        It’s ridiculous the way you describe it, but we all know that different standards are being applied to sevco; blatant and obvious sendings off not happening, penalties awarded to them that nobody else would get, eg if the handball had been against sevco Beaton would have awarded a penalty without hesitation.

        Why is it that the Ibrox mob get more penalties EVERY season than any other team in the league even during a time when Celtic won 10 in a row and a quadruple treble?

        We should be highlighting these “inconsistencies” at every opportunity, even despite the fact that the club seems unwilling to do so.

        The game in Scotland is corrupt and it’s not something we should be ignoring or tolerating.

        Re the Compliance Officer. He is an ex Ibrox season ticket holder, so regardless of whether he has any locus in such similar incidents, there is a clear conflict of interest which should make him ineligible for the post.

        • Martin says:

          We should be highlighting the inconsistencies, yeah. But not by appealing a blatant and correct decision. This would make us a laughing stock.

          • Tony B says:

            The appeal procedure gets used for various reasons, and I do not agree that the decision was blatant and correct given the distance from goal and Welsh approaching rapidly, despite what Kenny Miller had to say about it.

            There is at least room for some doubt re the correctness of this decision.

          • Roonsa says:

            I’m with Martin on this one. It was a definite red IMO. I thought so at the time and I thought so after watching it multiple times on the TV. Let it lie and challenge the obvious stuff.

  • kingmurdy says:

    it was a red card all day long ffs ! welsh was never gonna get there…
    can we not grow up a wee bit and accept when a decision goes against us legitimately !!!
    ffs what is it about football supporters !!
    the lammie pen thing was touch and go….i watched all the reruns and couldn’t make up my mind….beaton saw it in split second….
    maybe we could blame beaton and the sfa for russia’s invasion of ukraine too….am sure some of the fuqn dicks on here would have no problem with that….

  • MarkE says:

    Some referees need little encouragement to penalise our players while looking the other way when its us on the receiving end!

    That said, i thought “red card” as soon as i saw it!

    My only surprise was Beaton not awarding Motherwell a soft penalty just after it when one of their players fell on Juranovic’s side of our box.

    McGregor’s been making mistakes in games lately, and it could be down to tiredness, or just lack of concentration, but they often lead to opposition chances and on occasion goals; obviously he wasn’t at fault for the situation leading up to his red card, and took one for the team, but it could be a good thing long term with the aforementioned in mind.

    He’s not alone in making mistakes in games, its become a habit that needs breaking for a lot of first team regulars of late, especially given the system we play which requires 100% concentration and passing accuracy due to our openness at the back leaving us vulnerable to quick opposition breaks.

    That said, if this is us playing badly and we’re still top of the league, then we’ve got a lot of good things to look forward to when this team clicks into gear

  • SSMPM says:

    It could be argued there was a covering player as happened in the EPL with Chelsea and a last man Silva handball, mibbies not a convincing argument to some, fair enough. However there is a process and even a failed appeal gives us something to compare and contrast when the hun’s appeal a similar situation and get away with it eg Lennon puts his hands up and gets a 4 match ban, McCoist feck all

    • Martin says:

      There could not- a covering player is utterly irrelevant as last man isn’t a thing. That ball was getting hoofed over Hart (20+ yards out) and going, probably, into the net with the Motherwell player’s first touch. Welsh wasn’t going to get to the ball before the M’well player so it’s an obvious goal scoring opportunity. That there’s even debate over this red card speaks volumes about the ignorant spouting of the punditariat over the years.

  • Geoff says:

    Think it was defo a red but believe it saved two points.
    Hatate was on the receiving end of a horrendous challenge that didn’t even get a yellow by McGuire and the handball right in front of Beaton totally ignored.
    Roll on VAR.

  • Frank Connelly says:

    it a red card all day. I agree with James a rest would be just the job but given he will be in the side on Wednesday its a bit of a mute point. I agree some errors have come into his play but I feel the same applies to O’Rielly & Turnbull when he comes on. They seem to have gone off the boil a bit. Given the St Mirren performance be interesting to see if the “pool” is used and we see if the squad is as strong as we think. I felt we had a few who struggled to meet the challenge from St Mirren

  • SSMPM says:

    Doesn’t matter whether you or I think it’s a red card or not. It’s not us that make the decisions, it’s the refs. Compare McGregor and Silva’s offences. One ref sends a player off, one keeps a player on. VAR is supposed to be the answer, but the VAR official agreed with the ref with regards to Silva. The problem remains at the door of inconsistent refereeing. Appeal the decision

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