CELTIC have NOT taken the opportunity to appeal Odsonne Edouard’s yellow card for diving on Sunday even though the manager, the captain and his teammates were all in agreement it was a penalty.
The club had until today to lodge an appeal to the SFA but nothing has been forthcoming.
It’s a strange move by the club if they do all genuinely believe it should be a penalty, it would highlight a contentious decision and put the referee under the microscope.
In my eyes, it’s a soft penalty but one which I’ve seen given plenty of times, even under the microscope of VAR. The player has made contact and a goal-scoring opportunity denied.
After the game, John Kennedy said:
“We were denied a penalty kick which would have had a massive say in the game,” Kennedy told CELTIC TV.
“I spoke to Odsonne. In terms of that contact, if you get any sort of contact in the box when a player comes flying at you at that speed. If you slow it down you can say: ‘Oh, I’m not really sure much was there’.
“If you play it full speed, the player comes recklessly in, knocks you off balance and just touches you enough to go over. That is what has happened there. He knocked him over. If he doesn’t go over, he has got the ball, he scores a goal. So there is no need for him to go down.
“He is a goalscorer, he wants to score as many goals as possible. He is not that type of player. We feel aggrieved we didn’t get a penalty kick, but we have got to accept that and look at the bigger picture of the performance, which was good.”
Celtic played out a 1-1 draw with their Glasgow rivals in a pretty drab affair at Celtic Park.
The crowd not being at these games is so jarring and the game loses something. Towards the end of the match, neither team looked really fussed about going all out for the win and John Kennedy didn’t bring on Leigh Griffiths until the 87th minute.
The two teams will meet again one more time this campaign in the SPFL. The date is set for Sunday, May 2.
And that sir is what pisses me off with Celtic more than most things is our inability to put up a fight.
Makes no difference so whats the point of appealing?
We dont need to automatically appeal everything especially when its just a booking.
Only weakens our case when there is genuinely something to appeal against
Then let the SPFL INSTALL VAR at top 12 Clubs and see if that works..