Celtic suffered a sickening defeat at the hands of Lazio in tonight’s Champions League fixture at Parkhead tonight.
Pedro’s 95th-minute winner meant that Brendan Rodgers’ men leave Celtic Park empty-handed and rooted to the bottom of Group E.
However, there was one incident in the first-half that left former Celtic hero, John Hartson, absolutely furious with the VAR officials tonight.
Reo Hatate was left nursing a sore face after appearing to be punched by Lazio defender, Elseid Hysaj, and the challenge went unnoticed by both the referee and the VAR officials.
Speaking on commentary on TNT Sports, Hartson fumed, “I still cannot believe that challenge on Hatate in the first half. That was like a forearm smash.
“Hatate’s gone over, he’s clearly been caught and to not even have a look at it, VAR, quite shocking to me.”
At the time, I thought it was a clear red card and that Lazio should have been down to ten men. How the officials missed it was totally bewildering.
Had the law been applied properly, Hysaj should have saw red and Celtic could have went on to win the match.
But it wasn’t to be and just when it looked like the Hoops were about to earn their first point of the campaign, Lazio steal all three points at the end.
It really was a sickener for Celtic. They put everything into the match and to walk away with nothing is huge blow to their hopes of qualifying from the group.
Celtic need to pick themselves up and dust themselves off as Kilmarnock in the SPFL await Brendan Rodgers at the weekend.
In other news, ‘Just imagine’: Chris Sutton makes claim about Celtic after what he’s heard Jurgen Klopp say today