'It can only be one outcome' - Motherwell icon weighs in on Celtic penalty incident as VAR praised
VAR was forced to intervene at Celtic Park as referee John Beaton missed a Hoops penalty incident.
Former Motherwell defender, Stephen Craigan believes VAR was correct to intervene during an incident that took place involving Celtic and his old side.
The Hoops came back from a goal down to win 3-1 at home to their Lanarkshire rivals as Elijah Just opened the scoring in the first half, however his left footed strike was shortly cancelled out by Yang Hyun-jun. The match was finely balanced going into the second half until Motherwell’s Emmanuel Longelo was sent off for a foul on Daizen Maeda in the box as Tomas Cvancara put away the resulting spot kick. Yang then doubled his tally in the 79th minute to seal the three points for the hosts.
Longelo’s sending off and the resulting penalty wasn’t originally given by John Beaton, however VAR Kevin Clancy advised him to go the monitor and rethink his decision. After review, the referee decided that double punishment was the only option. Craigan criticised Beaton for not making the call in real time but also acknowledged that VAR did it’s job.
Craigan praises VAR intervention
The former Steelmen captain said: “I think John Beaton should’ve spotted it in real time to be honest. He’s in an ideal position. From Emmanuel Longelo, it’s really untidy. He loses the flight of the ball, then realises Daizen Maeda is away from him and what does he do when he realises he’s in trouble? He puts his arms around him and he isn’t even looking at the ball.
“He’s asking for a little bit of trouble there. The minute Daizen Maeda goes to the ground then John Beaton, or VAR, have a decision to make. It’s an open goal and a really clear cut opportunity. Once Beaton goes to the monitor to have a look at it, there can only be one outcome, which unfortunately for Motherwell was a penalty kick.
“It’s a good intervention (from VAR). We criticise it often enough for not making the right decisions, but that was one of the times where it worked and Cvancara went up to take the penalty with a little bit of composure and tucked it away.”
Jens Berthel Askou on double punishment incident
The Motherwell boss had very little complaints with Beaton’s final call. He said: "You can argue that Manny (Longelo) is holding him a little bit too long. (Daizen) Maeda's also trying as if they're wrestling. You see that situation a million times. Obviously, often the ball doesn't end there. If the ball hadn't gone there, it would never have turned into a penalty.
"But then there's an opportunity for the referee to argue that there's a holding offence. And that's hard to argue against. I know Manny is gutted right now that he didn't control that situation better than he did. And then obviously we get the double punishment with the red card, which gave us a mountain to climb at that point, because we were actually, I think, in very good control of the game there, ready to really accelerate and push for the last 20-25 minutes to get the win."