Alistair Johnston says the reaction to Joe Hart’s dressing room apology at Livingston was “Shut up Joe!”, dismissing his attempts to take the blame for his Celtic red card on Saturday.
Hart was sent off in the first half at Almondvale with the Bhoys 1-0 up. A strong team performance pushed that setback aside with the match eventually ending 3-0 to the Scottish champions.
Undoubtedly the goalkeeper made a mistake not connecting with the ball and wiping out Mohammed Sangare, but Johnston said his attempts at saying sorry fell on deaf ears with the team emphasising he wasn’t solely to blame.
The Canadian stated post-match [Celtic Way]: “Joe is a top-class pro. I think we all know that anyway. I don’t think he had anything to apologise for. That astro just kicked the ball back. We discussed that as defenders. We let a ball drop over our heads. We’ve just got to be wary that it’s not necessarily going to skip forwards. It’s going to potentially check back.
“So we saw that as a backline and realised we actually gave their full-back too much time to put a ball behind us and put Joe in a position where something like that could happen. Joe’s a top pro and the first one to put his hands up. And everyone was like, ‘Shut up Joe!’ But he’s a great guy and he’ll take it on the chin and go from there.”
There is unity amongst this Celtic group, no doubt.
Obviously, Hart’s error has been easier to take considering it didn’t cost the Bhoys three points, but I’d imagine the goalkeeper would have received similar warmth from his teammates regardless of the result.
The sending-off was the culmination of poor defending across the board. It wasn’t the first time that Hart was forced to fill space which should have been covered by the rest of his defensive line.
He’ll now serve a suspension but it won’t be long until the Englishman is back in the team. No-one else at the club is ready to replace him.
In other news, Brendan Rodgers explains incident with Livingston security in wake of Celtic win.
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