Celtic’s win over Kilmarnock yesterday saw Brendan Rodgers’ side brush off the dust from the Champions League Lazio wreckage with a display of fine football.
The 3-1 sends Celtic into the international break brimming with confidence and it also means Luis Palma can also banish the ghost of his offside goal on Wednesday night with a fine strike against Derek McInnes’ team.
McInnes can have no complaints over the result. His team where completely outplayed by a rampant Celtic team that could, and probably should, have had a lot more goals.
No result complaints but the Kilmarnock manager certainly had a complaint about Celtic midfielder, Reo Hatate.
What is Derek McInnes saying about Reo Hatate?
McInnes was unhappy about Hatate’s part in winning Celtic a penalty in the second half. The referee awarded a spot kick after the Japanese midfielder was challenged by a Kilmarnock defender, David Watson.
The spot kick award was eventually overturned by VAR but that still didn’t stop McInnes stopping short of accusing Hatate of diving.
McInnes said [Sunday Mail print edition page 54], “I thought the VAR decision was correct.
“My first thought was that Hatate has gone down far too easily.
“For me, he’s waiting for contact. But I don’t think there was any contact. If I’m wrong then I’ll apologise.
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“But, for me, it’s trying to buy a penalty and the referee has bought it as I thought he would. I thought, ‘he’s going to give a penalty here’ and he did.
“My heart sunk and then VAR overturned it. But that’s far too easy to go down, far too easy from Hatate. That’s poor.”
McInnes might want to get the apology ready for the Celtic midfielder
Footage of the match shows that contact was made by Watson on Hatate. The contact was soft and if the penalty had been awarded against Celtic, I would have been unhappy with it.
However, the £12m rated Celtic man did not dive. It’s that simple. He went down easily but when there is contact in the penalty area and you make a challenge like Watson did, you run the risk of leaving yourself open to being penalised.
At the end of the day, the penalty wasn’t the deciding factor on whether Kilmarnock won or lost this match. Celtic were outstanding and fully deserved the three points.
Now it’s a two-week hiatus as the final international break of the year kicks in and the Celtic team will go into the break full of confidence with the result, performance and quality of goals scored against Kilmarnock.
In other news, ‘He’s brilliant’: John Hartson loves 25-year-old Celtic man, he’s so impressed with his passing