Apparently Celtic got a favour from VAR at the weekend, Andrew Dallas did them an early turn with the sending off of James Brown.
The real issue today for Crawford Allan and his refereeing chums is what level of violence is required to get David Munro to issue a straight red card.
With Yang Hyun-jun cutting inside Munro was perfectly placed to see the brutal attack on the winger with determination all over the face of Brown as he sank his studs into the lower leg of the Celtic winger.
Straight away Sky Sports viewers knew that it was a bad one. Fortunately with Yang running at an angle he didn’t take the assault full on otherwise his season would probably be over.
As a top referee Munro knows the punishment for an attack like that, for whatever reason the SFA’s man in Dingwall thought that it was only worth a yellow card.
Referees are very loathe to issue a straight red card for assaults on Celtic players, twice within two months in season 21/22 Don Robertson had his yellow cards upgraded to reds and suspensions after thuggish attacks on Ange Postecoglou’s players.
Still can’t believe Munro tried to get away with a yellow for this before VAR had to step in. Look at the view he had of it. He’s a fkn cheat. pic.twitter.com/ySoTIn2eZ3
— Swed (@Swedleypops) November 5, 2023
Perhaps it is part of the overall levelling up process that Munro didn’t issue an immediate red card. Playing Celtic for 80 minutes with 10 men is virtually impossible for domestic opponents.
Had it not been for VAR Brown would have been free to inflict more damage on opponents.
That intervention seemed to jar on Dallas who went out of his way to hinder Celtic from going in front.
A ‘goal’ from Liam Scales was disallowed for routine penalty box contact between Oh Hyeon-gyu and Jordan White, a ‘goal’ from the Korean was disallowed based on the most dubious of VAR/Hawkeye images, after the ball had been played.
Oh and Cameron Carter-Vickers both had their jerseys pulled inside the penalty box- at Ibrox that is a penalty but it seems that Dallas views things differently when it involves a Celtic shirt.
Allan and his Sky Sports messenger Gordon Duncan are unlikely to team up this week to justify their VAR interpretations.
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