It got lost in the weeds on Saturday after Celtic’s win but Hibernian manager Lee Johnson was yellow carded during the game in a new level of time wasting and attempt to stop Celtic’s quick play.
Every week Celtic fans have to watch players fall over for very little reason, take an eternity to bring the ball back into play and watch goalkeepers run from side to side in their six yard box to eat up time.
Hibernian were no different. In the odd time they did attack but that attack failed, you’d see players falling over to get the game and Celtic’s counterattacks stopped.
On top of that on Saturday, the Hibernian manager decided to do his bit for the cause. When Celtic were awarded a free kick next to the touchline, a Celtic ball boy quickly threw another ball onto the pitch with the live ball going out of play. As Celtic went to take their free kick and push quickly for a goal, the Hibs boss intentionally kicked the other ball back into play so the referee would stop the quick free kick with two balls on the field.
It had the desired effect and even ate up a little more time by the referee running over to show Johnson the yellow card.
It hadn’t been discussed on any of the highlights of the game. The incident was finally brought up on Clyde Superscore board on Monday evening and even Ibrox pundit Kenny Miller branded Johnson’s actions as ‘dirty’.
Miller told SSB: “If a coach or an assistant has kicked the ball onto the pitch, it’s a dirty tactic for me.
“In that particular scenario, it was a real dirty tactic.
“If the ball is out and you’re throwing the ball on while the ball is dead (then it’s okay).
“But in-play, I don’t know exactly what happened, but if it was an in-game thing and the ball was thrown on to stop a situation for Celtic to benefit then I don’t like it at all.”
Because of VAR and some of the wild time wasting by the Easter Road side we saw 8 minutes added time in the first half and 7 minutes at the end of the game.
The more this happens the better. Horrible game management from away sides is a blight on the game.
Celtic won the game 3-1 in the end and even got a goal deep into added time.
Oh right!! Wait until the team wasting all the time then scores an equaliser or winner in time added due to their own cheating, let’s see how we like it.