Martin O’Neill was at his most evasive as he reflected on the controversies from Celtic’s 2-1 win over St Mirren.
The Celtic boss knows exactly how to play his media audience as he side steps away from any controversy.
Already this season there are various examples.
Last Friday O’Neill claimed that he wasn’t aware of UEFA’s home grown/developed quotas. It has been a factor in the inflated transfer fees for English players for more than a decade.
Back in pre-season O’Neill feigned surprise when he was asked about Celtic losing 14 players since the end of the 25/26 season.
After the League Cup win at Dundee United the Celtic boss claimed that he had only found out about Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain’s three match UEFA ban. The suspension was on the UEFA website the previous day.
When it comes to anything awkward O’Neill pretends to be completely in the dark.
Such as the controversy over Shim Mveuka’s disallowed goal against St Mirren.
Among the media it was known that there were problems calibrating the VAR lines.
O’NEILL SPARES ROBERTSON OVER VAR CALL
The VAR decision to disallow Camilo Duran’s goal was questionable.
Don Robertson seemed to select the still image that suited his wish rather than the point of contact.
Robertson has a long track record for giving unexplainable decisions against Celtic.
O’Neill could have made some very valid comments and complaints about one of Scotland’s leading referees over-stepping his remit.
For whatever reasons O’Neill opted to body swerve the main issues.
QUESTION: Is that quite frustrating when the technology is there and you think you’ve had a goal and it’s not working in that instance and the referee has to go to the screen?
Would you clear it up for me? Did the referee go to the screen to see what VAR should have done in the first place?
Of course O’Neill knew the sequence of events. He was playing for time and looking for diversions from the issue.
QUESTION: They couldn’t draw the lines just based on where the defender was and where Shim Mheuka was. I think he was essentially blocking where the defender was. They couldn’t draw the line so the referee was told to go to the screen to then basically determine with his eye whether the striker was offside or not.
Oh I see, with his eye.
QUESTION: Yeah, because they couldn’t draw the lines.
Rather than the lines, yeah?
And he obviously determined that. I didn’t agree with him but I didn’t see the lines.
Yeah, I think it’s frustrating in that sense that you think in this particular day and age that you could get lines drawn properly but I think it’s been a bit of a problem here for a while. And you know what, some days it’ll work in our favour so I shouldn’t complain. I’m not complaining because we won!
The drawing of lines absolutely isn’t the issue.
THERE IS ONLY ONE ISSUE HERE- DON ROBERTSON
Robertson’s intervention without evidence is the problem.
Similar to Alan Muir stepping in to tell Steven McLean that Alistair Johnston had cut the ball back from outside the pitch for Daizen Maeda to ‘score’ against Hibs in February 2025.
Like Robertson, Muir has a lengthy record for those type of decisions. That time he overstepped the mark, he wanted the Celtic goal disallowed.
Robertson is now in exactly that position.
There hasn’t been a word out of the SFA since Saturday night.
None of their pet messengers have been briefed over what version of the truth they should be pushing.
Willie Collum’s credibility is fragile. Over the course of 20 years he has learned to navigate around the truth on a variety of issues.
This Friday he will star in the first of his heavily scripted Whitewash shows with Gordon Duncan.
He can either call out one of his star men for breaking the VAR rules or blank the issue giving every VAR the option to do as they please regardless of whether they have evidence.
Some pressure from O’Neill today rather than some laid back banter with his admiring media chums would have helped push the spotlight onto Robertson.
Since Ross County away in April 2017 Robertson has been coming up with these sort of decisions. And climbing the SFA ladder season by season.
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