Callum Davidson was no less angry yesterday than he was leaving Ibrox on Saturday night, where some of the decisions would have been called inexplicable if we didn’t understand them as well as we do.
The numbers don’t lie. No penalty against their club at home since September 2019, and that says it all folks. I’ll say it again, the numbers don’t lie.
In the aftermath of the weekend, almost every commentator and pundit and expert was broadly agreed on three things. First, the penalty kick was a shocker. Secondly, the red card is worse. Third and finally, Ryan Jack was a very lucky player.
Callum Davidson had a slightly different take on the same subject; he thinks that our young star, on loan at St Johnstone, Adam Montgomery, who was the player on the end of that vicious high lunge, is also very lucky. ““It was very lucky Adam wasn’t hurt,” he said. “It was the type of tackle they have been trying to outlaw for the last four or five years.”
How the media outlets must have searched high and low for someone to defend that shocker. Or maybe not. Not when so many of them have Andy Halliday on speed-dial. And of course, he’s capable of giving an unbiased, honest opinion right?
Haha. Yeah, I laughed writing that as well.
He tries to dress up his defence of that thuggish action by taking Nicky Clark’s side as well of course, and insisting that neither deserved the red. Which is just as transparent a strategy as the one which was adopted by David Martindale yesterday when he said he meant no disrespect to Celtic before he doled out ladles of it.
Of course Clark’s wasn’t a red card, and only two people on the planet thought that it was; the match official and his buddy in the VAR room. If you listened to The Mooch after the game, he pretty much accepted it himself.
So Halliday telling us what everyone knows to be a fact doesn’t let him off the hook when he devolves into pro-Ibrox drum banging, which is exactly all that he’s doing here. And he’s entitled to do that if that’s what he wants, but the press pretending that he is offering up some kind of neutral perspective is frankly insulting.
Our own club is entitled to be a little bit miffed here as well, because Adam Montgomery is our player and if he had gotten a serious injury that would be an issue for us.
To allow a tackle like that, and to refuse to send Jack off … it’s a nonsense, it’s a disgraceful decision which Callum Davidson is rightly up in arms about, and Halliday just proves, in defending it, that he has a basic incapacity for media related work; he cannot maintain objectivity.
But then, along with that and his prior Ibrox career, he can probably look forward to a gig at the BBC when his player career ends. You wait and see. It’s a certainty.
Do you think neilson can trust him on Wednesday against the filth no chance if neilson plays him guaranteed he chop down the deliverance banjo kid or fat boy to give tavpen again cost neilson his job
He’ll pick up a ‘ Slight knock ‘ in training today so won’t play , waltzing on at full time to kiss and cuddle to the lads , back fit and playing at the weekend
Cert
That challenge by Jack gets worse every time I look at it. On first slow mo review I thought “yeah maybe it could be a yellow” but when you go full speed you see the lack of control and it’s definitely serious foul play. The red St J got….would be the sort of thing VAR was specifically introduced to stop. The penalty, well it’s one of those ones that sometimes you get (specifically if your home ground is Ibrox) and sometimes you don’t (if you’re anyone else). I would say that each of the 3 decisions was worse than the one which preceded it. After TavPen scored his 20 trillionth penalty for them, it didn’t even look in much doubt so not sure why the red was needed. Belts and braces, I assume. I wonder if once the league is mathematically won, we might finally see a red or a pen for the home team at Ibrox….
I hate the way clubs allow current players/manager s to go on the MSM, podcasts etc and talk about rival clubs. It’s a slap in the face to fans of those clubs. Halliday is beyond belief Martindale n Lafferty too. A hug n catch up on the pitch after being beat? going on rival clubs podcasts when you manage a competing team?? What the owners of Heats Livi Killie allow is criminal and their fans accept it. Is not professional, it suggests bias n impartiality Imagine say Grelish bigging up Villa in the media after they beat City??? Scotland for ya.
Shhhh…..! Don’t mention ‘criminal’ when ye mention Livi.
Halliday,he’s another one that thinks we all came up the Clyde in a banana boat.
The tackle on young Montgomery not a red,i Andy,or what about the assault on Cal Mac last year at Tyncastle,what was that!!!!
I as others have said on here BBC
Awaits you,you’ll fit in perfectly.
Gormless lookin haufwit jack, takin his anger from the clark tackle out on who better, than a Celtic loanee. If Adam Montgomery’s weight had been a bit more on that leg, it was a broken ankle. Could’ve ended the youngsters career. No that a moron, wi a neck as thick as his waist, would care a fuck right enough. Disgrace, tho nae great surprise he got away lightly wi it.
A referee would have sent Jack off but it was Collum enough said. Not 1grade 1 referee but 2 grade 1 referees cheated
Tbh mate ah think Collum just shat it tae send him off. Somethins changed, because one thing ah would argue in his favor, even tho he’s frequently incompetent, until recently he wisnae ever scared tae give big decisions against them, or any other team for that matter and thats a fact. Some sort of pressures got tae him imo.
He didn’t referee one of their games for over 6 months in 2019 after sending Candeias off at Easter Road.
I think this has affected him massively when officiating at their midden.
His media skills are about the same as his football skills total garbage.
Is there no retrospective action anymore or will it come into play when it involves a celtic player
Just watched a possible career ending challenge in the EPL semi with a red card.
Ex players as pundits making excuses why it might be harsh.
While we have a Hun based media these types of assaults will be excused.
Sportsound on Saturday said the tackle on Jack was career ending?
No retraction from them after the facts were made clear.
Facts and truth don’t matter as long as you wore the blue or steeped in it.
Is this the same halliday while playing for sevco who almost halved paddy Roberts in two so just a normal tackle eh hh