Celtic boss Brendan Rodgers makes feelings known about referee in his own unique way

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Brendan Rodgers wasn’t happy with the standard of officiating during Celtic’s defeat to Lazio on Wednesday.

It was a frustrating evening to be a Celtic supporter. The team performed well for the majority of the clash but went down to a last-gasp header from Pedro.

For all of the late euphoria we experienced against Lazio in 2019, this was a gutting ending/

Part of that frustration may be down to referee Donatas Rumšas and his team. The main area of contention was the blow that Reo Hatate suffered in the face after being struck Elseid Hysaj during the first half. The Lazio man appeared to have taken a look at Hatate before catching him, but there was no intervention from Rumšas or VAR.

Luis Palma saw a late goal disallowed by the technology while Pedro’s winner was very close to being offside. However, both decisions were correct.

“Yeah, they’re not so good,” Rodgers told TNT Sports after the game. “I think there’s a lot you’re seeing now and in Europe, it’s a lot more precious even than in the domestic game.

“I watched the Champions League games last night and tonight obviously [there were] some strange decisions to be honest.

“But I’ll focus more on the performance, and it overall merited something from the game. We didn’t quite get that but we’ll fight another day.”

It really isn’t in Rodgers‘ nature to be critical of match officials. Like his predecessor Ange Postecoglou, he prefers to focus on things he can have an impact on — namely his own side.

But those comments make it very clear that he didn’t like what he saw from the Lithuanian official and his team. In Rodgers’ unique language, “not so good” is about as scathing as you can be. It means “very bad”. “Strange decisions” is also about as far as you’re ever likely to see him go. In terms of the Hatate incident, he is absolutely right to be unhappy.

Watching the game, it was pretty surprising that VAR didn’t flag up the Hysaj moment. It looked malicious and play had been stopped, so there was a chance for a genuine VAR review. However, there was no evidence of that and play soon resumed.

Given that the Albanian wasn’t even booked for the incident, and our very own Gustaf Lagerbielke got a second yellow for a much more accidental collision against Feyenoord, it was a pretty frustrating one.

Having said that, we did have a 1-0 lead at that stage and should have gone on to win the game, in some way. It was just one of those nights.

In other news, 3 things we learned as Celtic lose to Lazio