Podcaster Ryan McGinlay has been left furious after seeing an elbow on Celtic midfielder Reo Hatate in his side’s most recent outing.
Over the weekend, this Bhoys took on St Johnstone away from home in the Scottish Premiership. Ange Postecoglou and co managed to go in at half-time with a 1-0 lead thanks to an own goal from Andrew Considine which came via a deflected Sead Haksabanovic cross, before sealing a dramatic victory.
Hatate played a key part in that goal as he delivered a clever ‘reverse pass’ to help put Haksabanovic into a dangerous position, however, it seemed as though St Johnstone player Max Kucheriavyi wanted revenge in the second half as he swung an elbow into the Celtic man.
The live blog on the Daily Record described the incident, noting that Hatate was floored by the ‘poor’ raised arm which caught him ‘flush in the jaw’.
Kucheriavyi was only booked for his indiscretion, though – a refereeing decision which left McGinlay pretty unhappy.
The podcaster took to Twitter to say: “How is he still on the park? He elbows him!”
Did you think it was a red card?
Yes
No
TIF thoughts on Celtic…
The Daily Record dubbed the elbow a ‘cast-iron booking’, but seeing as Kucheriavyi seemed to deliberately swing the elbow, he really was lucky to avoid a direct red card.
With the game only 1-0 at that stage, it certainly would have made the bulk of the second half an awful lot easier for Celtic had they been playing against 10 men.
The St Johnstone man was suspended for a couple of games last season while at Brechin City after picking up a red card, so it wouldn’t be the first dismissal of his career. In the end, though, the referee opted against a more serious call and Kucheriavyi can probably count himself a little lucky that the decision went in his favour.
To answer that question, “do you think the elbow was a red card or a yellow card?”, ask yourself, “had this been Hatate or any other Celtic player on any St. Johnstone player, would it have only been a yellow?”
Easy answer there. Absolutely a straight red.