Former Celtic manager and club legend Neil Lennon has weighed in on the recent VAR and refereeing controversy in Scotland, claiming that every decision that was made in the Hoops’ 2-0 loss to Hearts on Sunday was wrong bar one.
Lennon, who had his fair share of run-ins with officials in his time in the Parkhead dugout, recently admitted that it wasn’t great from Brendan Rodgers to call out John Beaton, but that many of the key decisions made were questionable regardless.
Speaking to Clyde 1 Superscoreboard on Monday, the man who secured Celtic the quadruple treble admitted that the officials on Sunday got mostly everything incorrect: “All the decisions apart from the offside for Lawrence Shankland were wrong”, he said.
“I didn’t think Celtic’s was a penalty, I certainly didn’t think it was a red card because, again, Yang, there’s no real intent there, he’s just trying to flick the ball over his head, a yellow card would have sufficed.
“The penalty that Hearts got was beyond belief that decision for me. Iwata’s got his eyes closed, he’s been bumped by Johnston, the ball lands on his arm and they come to the conclusion it’s a penalty.”
Lennon, along with much of the Parkhead faithful, have been left understandably frustrated with the recent decisions made against Celtic. There is an inherent lack of consistency in the use of VAR in Scotland and at the weekend, the technology in no way benefitted the Hoops.
Beaton re-refereed the game and moved Don Robertson away from his sensical decisions. Rodgers was right to call it out and rightly stand up for his team.
