At the weekend Celtic were the dirtiest team in the UK, covering eight professional leagues.
John Beaton turned in an incredible performance at Ibrox, ‘missing’ out on all the big decisions but bailed out by Nick Walsh on VAR who was even able to correct an act of simulation committed right in front of the Bellshill based official.
Slightly more subtly Beaton made a succession of ‘puzzling’ decisions on free kicks with the 23 awarded against Celtic, despite having 46% possession, more than any senior club in Scotland or England over the whole weekend.
During the first half, despite dominating possession, scoring twice and having five other good chances Brendan Rodgers’ side still picked up three yellow cards.
The home side, chasing the game for the vast majority of the 90 plus minutes managed to avoid a single booking.
Going into the match Celtic had picked up 31 yellow cards over 31 SPFL matches, the Ibrox side 31 from 30 matches.
Two teams with very similar disciplinary records over a sustained period of matches- until Beaton got involved in a match where the winner would go into the driving seat to lift the Premiership title.
Fouls awarded against Celtic the 1st half v Rangers.
Fouls NOT awarded against Rangers the 1st half v Celtic.
Celtic’s total foul count of 23 the weekend there, is the most in all Scottish leagues (Premiership – Div 2) and all English leagues (Premiership – Div 2) pic.twitter.com/G6GtFLDPm1
— Lint (@Zeshankenzo) April 10, 2024
The clips above show how Beaton exerted his influence on the match. When one team challenged for the ball their opponents collapsed in a heap in the safe knowledge that they would be awarded a free kick. The classic case involved Connor Goldson panicking under pressure from Matt O’Riley shortly before half time.
In reverse almost anything went unpunished, highlighted by Beaton having a clear view of Tom Lawrence smashing into Tomoki Iwata to instigate the move that led to Cyriel Dessers netting.
On review an embarrassed looking Beaton had to disallow the goal for the sort of challenge that he allowed to go unpunished throughout the match by the home players.
Today Aberdeen revealed that they were told by the SFA that Hawkeye failed in their match at Livingston on Saturday with the VAR decision on an offside call made their call based on the naked eye and a still image.
No comment has been made by the SFA about the events at Ibrox on Sunday despite Celtic leaking their concerns bout issues reveled to their media partners at the Daily Record and The Sun.
CLICK HERE for the Crawford Allan rumours.
CLICK HERE for the Aberdeen statement on VAR.
📺 Another astonishing VAR story for our league
⛔ Hawkeye system failed in the lead up to Miovski’s 92nd minute winner for Aberdeen; lines couldn’t be drawn to determine if a player was offside in the build up
⛔ The VARs then used a freeze frame (with no lines) to determine… https://t.co/3sJFHQuM28 pic.twitter.com/0TtU9xQmYn
— Scotland’s Coefficient (@scotlandscoeff1) April 10, 2024
