Soccer Football - Scottish Premiership - Celtic v Rangers - Celtic Park, Glasgow, Scotland, Britain - February 2, 2022 Celtic's Daizen Maeda applauds fans after the match Action Images via Reuters/Jason Cairnduff
I’m only going to do it once, I swear it … Daizen Maeda. I feel vindicated. For all those who wonder what Ange sees in him, why he selects him and what he contributes, I rest my case, the boss can rest his and the player can take a bow.
Now, onto the rest of the game.
That was tough tonight. Tough in part because we were well short of our best. Ange is right. This break might be coming at just the right time. Get the team off to Australia, those not playing in the World Cup. Get them some sun and some relaxing. Get them some time in front of our global fan-base. They have competed like tigers thus far this campaign.
The time off will do them good. The time away will refresh them.
On the strength of that they need it, and in particular the defence which suddenly has found itself prone to all sorts of silly errors and lapses in concentration. This cannot be put down to the style of play. It’s just bad form, and there’s too much of it right now.
But the team continues to get results, and from the moment we opened the scoring tonight there really only was going to be one winner in the game. Motherwell set their stall out to defend and hit on the counter. More anti-football from clubs which just don’t want to have a proper go, and it got what it deserved. Had they shown more endeavour they might have got something – I doubt it but you never know. But instead they invited us on.
We got the second and we deserved it. That wrapped up the points.
But before that we got yet another diabolical VAR decision when Jota’s perfectly good goal was ruled out. The VAR “view” that they showed on TV was so ridiculous that it boggles the mind. Yet when it came time to scrutinise Motherwell’s strike they had a clean shot of it with the highlight lines and everything. Amazing what it can do and what it can’t.
Amazing what its operators can do and what they can’t more like. We’ve won this match and so once again this has not had a material influence on the outcome, but it’s going to have a material influence sooner or later and we should be concerned by that.
Overall this was what we expected; a Wednesday night fixture at the fag end of a tough spell, and a game where we played to the finish yet again and scored our second late. That we conceded right after it made the closing spell tougher than it had to be … and where in God’s name five minutes injury time came from I will never bloody know.
It did no good.
In spite of the Mibbery, Celtic keeps its seven point lead.
That’s all that it’s going to matter when this season ends. Nights like this win titles; remember that.
Oh and players like Maeda do too. And yeah, I did it again.
I have already posted on these decisions from earlier today,we will get shafted by this and it will be sevco who will benefit.
I don’t blame the cheats operating VAR or refs,we should be hounding our own club to do something about it,but hey they are in it up to their necks.
AS I SAID THE BIG FIX IS ON,WE ARE ALL PART OF IT.
Celtic must call this out publicly. Your either offside or not, a view from behind play can’t be the line the officials are viewing. We still haven’t seen lines from Abada against Hearts. They will eventually cost us points.
A grade 1 referee with slow motion and every angle available and on screan lines to help him with offside decisions. Adjudged Jota to to be offside .And once again another grade 1 referee is told not to or chooses not to have a look at it
Just more ‘teething problems’ eh !? Time for our club tae push for officials outwith Scotland tae operate VAR imo.This is the same ‘official’ dickinson who gave the Bernabei decision on Saturday. That was scandalous tonight, a brilliant goal. And why tf was there no clear VAR line shot for ours and yet one for the motherwell decision ?? Looks like we’ll need tae win our games with totally clear cut goals. Any tight decision that’s tae be made by any of these bent, corrupt imposters, we’re not gettin it. Btw thought Motherwells goal was terrible from us defensively. Need tae get that looked intae and sorted.
It’s really down to Celtic now, they must call this out and ask to see the footage that was used to strike out what looked like a fantastic Jota goal. That’s 4 or 5 VAR decisions that have gone against Celtic in just a few weeks, all of them at crucial points in the game. The penalty we got up at Livi was utterly meaningless, as the game was done and dusted at that point. If the club continue to say nothing, there’s no point any of us complaining about it, but it will eventually cost us points.
What got me was after the Motherwell goal was awarded after a VAR check…why were we not made to take kick off…the ref just added the goal and let us play…?
Manipulation of VAR is fundamentally wrong. Anyone found to be misrepresenting a situation ought to be dismissed immediately. The concerns I had of the VAR appointee prior to the match were entirely vindicated. This affects the income of clubs and is open to organised gambling.
Even to check the Maeda goal was a joke as he was clearly well onside. Even someone with oily specs would have seen that.
I see VAR played a role in the cousins game too. Clear and obvious handball in box by Sevco…no penalty. Very interesting decision given the plethora of “soft” handballs in other games.
One might accuse them of inconsistency were they not being entirely consistent in their approach to penalties against Sevco.
Celtic are playing teams of journeymen who park the bus, play anti-football and hope VAR will do them a turn. VAR has so far kept up it’s part of the bargain in this regard as it seems Celtic are winning despite some very dodgy VAR calls. What has saved us is that we’ve managed to score enough goals to compensate for the VAR handicap. This situation needs to be looked at (complained about), but until Celtic learn to keep clean sheets, we’re going to get meaningfully punished by a dodgy VAR call. Jota’s goal was good and Hearts should have had a penalty last night.
Clear as day penalty at ibrox not even passed to the ref to look at. Our board must complain, the evidence is clear that the ref’s and VAR interpretators are utilsing VAR to the benefit of the huns and negative interpretations against Celtc. This lack of consistency is no accident.
The Scottish game is corrupted by orangemen
Totally agree 100% everybody knows that these corrupt referees are all about denying Celtic. WHATi don’t understand is why their is no investigation by others.
It wasn’t the only thing var missed two bad tackles not even given a second look both reds only a booking for the second tackle