Toys out the pram- Glasgow Times writer can’t cope with correct VAR call from Ibrox

Kenny Ward of the Glasgow Times has come up with a classic way of expressing his anger that the Laws of the Game were applied during Celtic’s win at Ibrox.

Watching his club go 58 SPFL matches without conceding a penalty tends to skewer opinions with Sunday’s match an unwelcome reminder that now and the Fair Play is applied in the Scottish game.

Showing what a rounded character he is Ward decides to include taking his daughter on the school run with a Pokemon theme into his yarn that Cyriel Dessers should have got away with his foul on Gustaf Lagerbielke.

Don Robertson missed it as it happened, when Alan Muir reviewed the incident from the VAR studio he suggested that his SFA colleague should take another look at the contact between Dessers and Lagerbielke.

At this point Ward couldn’t resist shouting IT’S NO FAIR.

In his mind numbing Glasgow Times column he explains:

Thus it was when referee Robertson heard that familiar chirping in his earpiece after Kemar Roofe had fired the ball past Joe Hart at Ibrox following a coming-together between Celtic defender Gustaf Lagerbielke and Dessers, with the Dutchman finding Roofe inside the area to put Rangers ahead in the first half. Or so they thought. Of course blue-eyed boy Dessers had done nothing wrong in the eyes of the Rangers faithful, just as for Celtic da’s Lagerbielke had been deprived of his chance to find the meaning of life in that vortex he was exploring.

NOTE: Dessers is a Nigerian internationalist with 4 full international caps

Watching the replay of the moment Dessers took the ball in slow motion, it was clear that his foot made contact with the Swede who was still, even if he appeared to have passed the event horizon and was in the process of spaghettification himself, in possession of the football. Foul then? Yes, it was. And in the circumstances, Robertson had no choice by the time he had been called over for a look at the pitchside monitor.

But here’s the problem with this administration of VAR. Who was at fault? Sure, it seems obvious – just as my daughter was the one breaking the 20’s plenty oath within the village – Dessers catches Lagerbielke, but what was he doing when this collision erupted? He appeared to have entered some kind of vortex, taking touch after touch after touch, turning this way and that completely unchallenged like he was making that infinity figure-of-eight on the pitch. He might as well have been assessing who would win a fight between a little yellow lightning-shooting marsupial and a dragon. If I was playing in a Sunday league match and my centre-half did that, I’d (in my head at least) be screaming at him. And I’m sure there were a few in the Celtic line-up and technical area preparing their half-time barracking of Lagerbielke when they saw him squander possession to Dessers in that manner.

For VAR to intervene here, however, was like PC Plod calling for the CCTV footage from the village shop to assess the crash between blood-snot face and my little darling. Of course, on my side I’d say she was just scooting her merry way and he was too busy dawdling about to see her coming, and Mrs Porsche 911 would point to the actual video evidence of her crashing into him then scooting off like nothing happened. And both would be right.

But in the real world the police would never be called to such an incident, the CCTV camera on the village shop is almost certainly an empty Corn Flakes box painted white with a red dot stuck on it, the children go on barely remembering anything ever happened, and the grown-ups pretend like nothing did.

Finally spitting out his anger after going round the houses Ward concludes with:

Football used to be like that, but VAR is sucking the everyday out of it. Was it a foul? Yes. Did VAR get it right? Yes. But should it ever have been looked at in the first place? Give me a break. I’ve got another 442 school runs to go this year alone.

A look at the SPFL Premiership table is also something that Ward should take a break from.