Like A Death In The Family

SUPPORTING as I do, one of the “diddy teams” in Scottish Football, I rather enjoyed the discomfort of the Celtic Apologists during Tuesday night's serious doing from Atletico Madrid. The television companies' determination to not employ real journalists, relying instead on former players to comment on games was surely never more seriously traduced than by John Hartson's excruciatingly-embarrassing performance in this match.

Hartson's big reddie was never redder than in his reaction to the red-carding of Dazien Maeda in the first half. Ok, let's get the mitigating factors out of the way:

• Perhaps, as Hartson kept bleating, there was no intent, but, in penalising dangerous play – intent is not an issue

• He went in, studs showing, over the ball and he hit the Atletico player's shin – that's dangerous play every day of the week

There are only three places in the world where such a challenge is not an immediate red card (assuming a competent referee and VAR team). These places are:

1. Celtic Park

2. Ibrox Stadium

3. Hampden Stadium

And then only when it is a domestic Scottish game and the player making the challenge is from Celtic or Rangers and they are the home side.

Yes, going down to ten man at such an early stage in the game condemned Celtic to certain defeat, given the quality of the opposition. However, until they ran out of steam in the final quarter, I thought the Celtic defence did a good job in containing Atletico. However as tiredness kicked in, it became a case of how many would the Spanish team score.

Brendan Rodgers spat the dummy almost as far as Hartson in his post-match comments. Of course, Rodgers has been long enough at Celtic to expect to get the 50/50 – even up to the 25/75 decisions, everywhere but Ibrox, in domestic games, In Europe, however, Celtic is the “diddy” team and that's something he finds hard to deal with, poor wee soul.

He should maybe remind his players of a bit of Celtic folklore – after all the club is almost Shinto rather than Roman Catholic in its worship of ancestors, particularly “The Lions”: Jock Stein, a much, much-better manager than Rodgers, always told his players: “Don't give the referee a chance to make a daft decision which could hurt you.” That was Stein's guidance, but, even he had players in the Lisbon Lions squad who could not be guaranteed to not do something stupid in the course of a game.

ON WEDNESDAY night it was Owen Hargreaves' turn to apologise on behalf of his own team and criticise the referee, after Marcus Radford was red-carded against Copenhagen.

He had company on commentary from Robbie Savage (Manchester United Class of '92), who, to be fair was magnanimous after the final whistle, but during the game jumped on every decision given against United, as being wrong.

Needless to say, Paul Scholes (also Class of '92) also felt United and Rashford had been treated harshly.

What is it with British football? The old adage about the referee always being right has gone out of the window. Now, I appreciate, referees being human will make mistakes and in Scotland, yes, given the degree of vitriol the lunatic fringe of their support can summon-up, and with the example of Hugh Dallas and the abuse, both verbal, physical and mental to which he was subjected, well, can you blame a Scottish referee for rushing to award the Bigot Brothers marginal decisions in their favour.

But, across all strata of football in this country, there is a total failure to accept the referee is the sole judge of fact and to accept his decisions, even when we disagree with them.

One of the reasons behind the introduction of VAR was apparently a desire to take a lot of the arguments out of the game. Clearly we are still a long away from that day – or is it, that homo sapiens always has to have argument and conflict?

OK, VAR is still flawed, but, might that be the human element and the fact, humans are flawed? Surely, however, the flaws can be ironed-out.

THAT ironing-out really has to be done soon, after the Horlicks of Liverpool's disallowed equaliser against Toulouse. OK, the ball definitely hit MacAllister's arm, but, from the start of organised football until VAR came in, not every hand ball was a foul.

As we used to say when I was a boy: “The baw played him.” MacAllister chested the ball down, but, it came off his chest onto his arm, which was in a natural position. Play then continued for some seconds before Liverpool scored. I don't see how the referee – who had clearly missed the contact with the arm, could have been said to have missed a clear and obvious offence, since the ball to arm contact was neither clear nor obvious. Also, it wasn't MacAllister who scored, so, the hand ball hadn't affected the “goal”. Bad refereeing and yet another example of how the human element in the VAR process can cause problems.

Steve McManaman on co-commentator duties, was naturally upset at the decision, but, he accepted it with far better grace than the myopic cheerleaders for the two British teams the previous night had.

ALLY McCOIST then showed how it should be done on his shift for the Rangers game. Of course, Ally is the living embodiment of: “once a Ranger – always a Ranger” but the badge-kissing imports who apologise for the other Glasgow side might do well to study how Ally approaches the colour commentator's role – they might find out why he is seen as the best in the business, and they come across as bitter and biased.

I have been unimpressed by some of this current Rangers' side so far this season. The team remains very-much a work-in-progress, but, some of the players who, under the last manager I thought were simply Not Rangers Class are definitely looking more like the thing under Mr Clement.

Celtic might be out in front in Scotland, but, I think Rangers are now better set up to compete in Europe and, if the new boss continues to work as he has started, those who are prepared to already give the league title to Celtic might have to re-think things.