Brendan Rodgers has questioned VAR official John Beaton’s decisions to send referee Don Robertson to the monitor twice during Celtic’s defeat to Hearts.
Despite Robertson judging Yang Hyun-Jun’s foul on Alex Cochrane to be a yellow and Tomoki Iwata’s handball not to be a penalty, Beaton on VAR called on Robertson to review each decision, leading to a red card for Yang and a penalty for Hearts.
Rodgers said (Sky Sports), “I never like to comment on officials, but that cost us today, the officiating, from on field to John Beaton on VAR. That cost us.”
Rodgers was clearly bemused by VAR’s intervention in the game, which ultimately shifted momentum in Hearts’ favour, with the negative side of VAR there for all to see in a disappointing afternoon for Celtic.
In all honesty, if a red card and penalty were not given, not many would have batted an eyelid.
But the stop-start nature of VAR meant Robertson was forced to review his own decision in real-time, implementing seeds of doubt in his mind over each decision.
Celtic are in action next against Livingston at Celtic Park next Sunday in the Scottish Cup, with the Hoops desperate to bounce back from defeat at Tynecastle.
Awful decisions today. Nonetheless we’re never in it. Sooner Hart retires the better. His usual Gaff a Game was evident again. Idah needs to be sent back. Passing back sideways so easy for the opposition.zDaezen Kyogo washed up. This game was there for the taking but again no bottle.
Yes, poor officiating and useless VAR affected the game badly, but let’s not overlook the lazy penalty taken by Idah right at the start and the side to side, middle to back tactics of this Celtic side once again. It’s such negative football and it has utterly destroyed the goal machine called Kyogo.
Liam Scales’ ability with the ball going forward is zero – he seems braindead when deciding who to pass to – and Greg Taylor makes way too many mistakes and bad passes as well. The whole problem for Celtic is up at that defensive area, they seem incapable of getting the ball forward, quickly. As for Maeda – great runner, tries hard, occasionally pulls off a good goal, but too often ineffective in the final third.
So yes, typical VAR refereeing by Brother Beaton, which is to be expected when Rangers are in trouble, but ultimately not the reason why this Celtic side looks a shadow of itself from as recently as last summer. Rodgers ultimately has to carry the can for this shambles and join his fellow failures on gardening leave.
We were off it from start to finish. End of.
They’ve been “off it” too often this year and so it will be “end of” (their Champions status) unless they get their act together very soon and start showing some winning consistency.