Rodgers was angrier at full time today than I’ve heard him in a long time, and it’s overdue. Had we questioned some of the appalling decisions from officials when we were winning games – as some of us have long urged – we might not be here today where some of the more desperate hacks are going to say that this is sour grapes following a defeat.
But there is no smokescreen here. That’s as clear an example of a single official making ridiculous decisions that directly influenced the result of a match that you will ever see. John Beaton decided that game, and if he’d got those decisions right there would be nothing to talk about. But neither of them was even close. They are outrageous.
Rodgers got some stick from The Village Idiot for personally naming John Beaton in his attack. Well, first, I’ll accept that criticism when someone plays back what he said about the Ibrox club deliberately targeting Collum. Not one whisper to that effect escaped his mouth.
Secondly, if we don’t start naming and shaming people how are we going to get better? Nobody at Celtic is saying Beaton shouldn’t referee our games after all, and not even in tactical briefings to bloggers. I don’t think any Celtic fans wants to see him do so, but the club has not got an official policy on this one way or the other and the manager wasn’t trying to set one.
He is focussed on one game, today’s game, saying that Beaton should be personally accountable for that travesty and that’s a wholly legitimate view to take. It is exactly the view that the club should be taking as well, and they should make a statement to that end.
Celtic will never demand that an individual ref be banned from doing our games. But we can insist on higher standards and we can state our view, and it will be shared by other clubs, that officials should be accountable and sanctioned when they fall below those standards, otherwise how do you expect ever to improve them?
Beaton’s decisions today come at a critical juncture in this title race.
If the league is decided by a point, who will argue that this game didn’t play a critical role? Those decisions were so completely wrong as to render them virtually indefensible. If you think that they are just a result of incompetence and not bias you are fully entitled to that view, but in holding that view you have to accept that he shouldn’t be in charge of any further top flight game, because you simply can’t trust him to get the big calls right.
This is a perverse situation for our club to have permitted in the first place. Nothing happened today which wasn’t totally expected. We even had former ref Steve Conroy in the media this very week suggesting that officials might decide the destination of this title, and the longer we in this game continue with the VAR farce the worse it gets.
That’s something else our club should be committing itself to; ridding our league of this “technology” once and for all, on the understanding that all it has accomplished is that it gives our enemies more chances than ever to do us harm. Nobody in the game would have agreed to its introduction knowing that it would actually make matters worse, and if we were the first club to call it out and say we’re not willing to pay for its retention we wouldn’t be alone.
Something has to give. How much more damage to this campaign are we going to let those at Hampden do? On a weekend when the Ibrox club has demonstrated to other clubs that it’s beatable (just not to Hearts, who did exactly what they were supposed to today in total contrast to their utter surrender last weekend) we are damned lucky that it hasn’t completely upended our campaign and put this title race almost out of reach.
We can consider this a warning shot, not a coup de grâce. We had bloody better heed it and start working, right now, to prevent Hampden’s officials from harming us any further.
Celtic board need to grow a pair and at least put a complaint in something they should have been doing when we were winning, but sadly they won’t
Biggest problem we have is still the hierarchy who have to go, along with Rodgers and the coaching team.
The Hearts match was diabolical for performance reasons not officials calling it as they see it.
Rodgers & his laptop lackie coaches did nothing to adapt once Yang went off.
So many went awaol and hid from doing their jobs, Bernardo being the biggest culprit.
Iwata was criticised for being caught in possession, but when players don’t make themselves available for a pass then this is what happens.
Why can’t we score a simple penalty ????
I said since November that Rodgers had to go before it’s to late, we’ll it’s gone beyond too late.
Can’t blame officials for send inflicted issues, just sounds like The Rangers with deflection stories.
The time for change has passed.
Lawell jnr has nearly gone but still being paid, so expect him to get a profit bonus again for failure.
Yes Daddy is taking care of Jnr.
Daddy Lawell should have been gone years ago, he’s like having sour milk in your coffee every day for years.
The team has some issues that must be addressed, only a strong mgr and coaching team will make that happen.
A player or two in the Mooy class is required, some experience and raise your level when times are hard, (not McCarthy type) signing kids is fine but why do that when we have youngsters already in our B team.
So stop blaming officials, these decisions are much the same for all teams.
The rules need to be simplified to encourage flowing football.
VAR in Scotland will always be criticised, a lot of that is down to our sectarian divide.
Let’s support the players when they are on the pitch.
Rodgers, the coaches, along with the board deserve calls for the sack, until they start performing.
Firstly I think to say enemies is ridiculous, secondly to call out john Beaton is wrong as it was the onfield ref who made all the decisions, right or wrong, I’m an amateur referee and the red card was to me correct,no player should raise their foot that high if at any risk of making contact with another player,the two penalties were both debatable but both were given and that’s the end of it,if we’d have scored with ours and went on to win 1-nil I’m sure the Hearts fans would be going mental and we would all sit laughing smugly,so don’t start throwing tantrums when the going gets tough,as for Rodgers, he shouldn’t be here in my and many more Celtic supporters minds,we’ve bought badly and played badly for parts of the season,all down to him,and as for getting rid of VAR do that and there will be no more champions league.
Succinctly expresses the rage felt by Celtic fans. Very happy that Rodgers called it out in strong terms. However, we should not shy away from exposing .the intentional bias demonstrated. They may think again in future. Staying quiet does nothing. The sending off was intended to hobble Celtic’s game plan. Yang absence severely disrupted Celtic. Memories of the targeting of the French left back, Mahler?, against Rangers all those years ago: booked almost immediately and sent off soon thereafter. Again this disrupted Celtic tactically . This is not new.