Celtic’s win over Ross County was packed full of VAR incidents yesterday afternoon.
The major turning point was when VAR intervened and, rightly, sent off Ross County defender, James Brown for a dangerous tackle on Hyunjun Yang.
Celtic also had two goals chalked off during the match and James McFadden couldn’t believe that one of the goal was ruled illegal due to a foul by Celtic striker, Hyeongyu Oh.
The South Korean challenged for the ball in the Ross County box and after Liam Scales tucked away the loose ball to put Celtic ahead, VAR intervened much to the Sky Sports commentator’s dismay.
McFadden said [Sky Sports], “You see Oh there, is that enough really? I’m not sure. I think it’s because of the arm going out. Oh get’s up and put’s his arm on his back.
“But there is contact when players are jumping for the ball. Jordan White making sure the referee sees it.”
You can see the incident here, but it was a very soft decision by both the referee and the VAR officials.
Quite clearly you can see from the video that Oh is watching the ball and making a genuine attempt to win the ball.
The Ross County defender throws himself down to the ground and eventually wins the foul that rules the goal out.
It was quite a bizarre decision by the onfield referee and the video officials to stand by the original verdict when the footage shows that it was a perfectly good goal.
Yesterday was a frustrating afternoon for Celtic. Ross County were resolute and dug deep after going down to ten men so early in the game but Brendan Rodgers’ team cause wasn’t helped by some poor VAR officiating that, if used correctly, would have made the afternoon go a lot smoother for Celtic.
Thankfully for Rodgers, that decision didn’t have any material impact on the result as Celtic eventually won the game 3-0 but questions must be raised at how some of the decisions made by the VAR officials actually came to light.
In other news,‘Trust me’: Paul Merson now makes claim about what Ange Postecoglou did at Celtic