Willie Collum told a Rangers vs Celtic penalty incident needs addressed as Hoops could've had second spot kick
A former English Premier League official believes Celtic should’ve had two second half penalties.
Former referee, Keith Hackett says he’s interested to hear Willie Collum’s take on an incident which took place in the second half at Ibrox on Sunday.
Rangers were 2-0 up against Celtic and looked to be cruising to victory after Youssef Chermiti’s first half brace, however an inspired Hoops second half comeback led to the points being shared in Govan. Kieran Tierney’s header halved the deficit, before Daizen Maeda’s goal-bound header hit the arm of Dujon Sterling in the box as the visitors were awarded a penalty. Substitute Reo Hatate’s spot kick was saved by Jack Butland and so was the initial rebound, but the Japanese midfielder tapped the ball in at the third time of asking to equalise.
The result means Celtic stay within touching distance of Rangers and could leapfrog their Glaswegian rivals in the SPFL Premiership table on Wednesday night, if they win their game in hand against Aberdeen. Despite this, Hackett believes Celtic could easily have been awarded another spot kick in the second half and could’ve perhaps left Ibrox with more than a point.
Celtic denied a penalty kick - Hackett
The former Premier League ref believes Sterling was lucky not to give away two penalties, after a previous incident took place involving him and Sebastian Tounekti. The Celtic winger was taking on the Gers utility man on the left hand side of the box as Sterling looked to shield the ball out of play for a Rangers goal kick, however he did appear to have a hold of Tounekti’s shirt.
Hackett told Football Insider: “Well, I do hope that Willie Collum, the Head of Referees, will look at this and enquire of the referee and VAR how they failed to award what is clearly a penalty kick. The defender holding and impeding his opponent with contact. That is a foul and should have resulted in a penalty kick.”
It was a busy day for referee John Beaton who remarkably only dished out three yellow cards despite their being a number of personal battles being fought during the game, as well as some handbags at the end. Don Robertson will be the man in the middle this Sunday, as the pair will face off in the Scottish Cup at Ibrox again.
Hearts real winners after dramatic weekend
For the second weekend in a row, Hearts have extended the gap on both Rangers and Celtic, after they defeated Aberdeen 1-0 at Tynecastle on Saturday. Celtic now sit eight points behind the league leaders, but will have on opportunity to close the gap with their game in hand, also against the Dons, on Wednesday night.
Martin O’Neill said post-match: “If you’re looking at it from a distance, I think that the result is a really good result for Hearts as much as anything else. That’s the way, if you were involved with Hearts, you’d have been thinking a point each here would be good. As I said earlier, we’ve been fighting the whole way through.
“It seems as if it’s like the proverbial mountain to climb every single week and games are getting fewer and fewer now. Even so, we’re still well in it. We’re still well in this here. We need to try and win on Wednesday (vs Aberdeen), and if we could do that, it’d be great. That will not be easy for us.”