When the ball appeared to strike the hand of Connor Goldson in the recent Glasgow Derby and yet a penalty kick was not awarded to Celtic, there was more of a feeling of inevitability than anger amongst a lot of supporters. After all, this has been the story of the Hoops’ season till now, with one decision after another going against them. Yet, they somehow lead the Scottish Premiership table by nine points.
One can only wonder what that gap could have been if all those decisions had not gone against Ange Postecoglou’s side.
The hope was that the introduction of VAR would eradicate all or most of the mistakes that were being made. Contrary to that, it appears that the system has only resulted in further controversy and inconsistent decision-making in the Premiership this season.
Postecoglou did not sound particularly happy with the situation while speaking in a press conference recently. As reported by 67 Hail Hail, the Celtic manager said:
"“There has been zero consistency and these things normally even themselves out.“But with the introduction of VAR and the decisions that have gone against us, there’s zero chance that’s going to even out by the end of the season. It’s just remarkable, we’ve had at least three major decisions go against us.“We can say it just comes down to interpretation or whatever people want to say, but I guarantee you if that game finished 2-2 and Rangers were denied that decision, the talk would be about how that was a title-defining decision.“The fact that it wasn’t because we still have a reasonable result, as we have in all the other games like at Tynecastle when the decisions went against us, doesn’t mean we should ignore it. That could be a team that gets relegated on a decision like that.”"
Postecoglou speaks out publicly about decisions against Celtic
Those comments from Postecoglou are brilliant and hit the nail on the head. The only reason there has not been more controversy about some of the decisions that have gone against Celtic is because they have continued to get the results.
With Kyogo Furuhashi scoring a late equaliser at Ibrox, the story of the match became Celtic showing their character once again while the Rangers dropped two points at home and their chance to cut the lead down to six points.
On a different day, there could have been a much bigger spotlight on the Goldson decision and why a penalty was not awarded on that occasion.
With 18 more league games to go, Celtic are leading the title race by nine points. And one would hope that the decision-making will be much better moving forward than it has been till now.