The Tannadice incident that left Celtic supporters annoyed today; Sutton weighs in

By John McGinley

December 5, 2021

Celtic have every right to be annoyed with referee Don Robertson today after yet another shocking challenge on a Bhoys player this season that went unpunished.

Calum Butcher slid in heavily, studs up, on Celtic star David Turnbull in the second half today. He was only shown a yellow card, however.

In fairness to the Sky Sports coverage, they called it out as a red, even if Andy Walker did qualify that by saying it might only have been picked up by VAR. For me, it was rather blatant and should have been caught by the officials.

Chris Sutton wasn’t happy either and took to social media to offer his opinion that Butcher should certainly have received his marching orders.

It’s all rather amusing in the wake of Thursday night when some pundits and managers would have you believe that Celtic have an iron grip of the Scottish FA. Not in Glasgow, Robbie Neilson has been bleating. Well, what about in Dundee?

The hysteria about a marginal offside decision for a Celtic goal stands in stark contrast to the silence that will occur after today’s multiple horrendous assistant referee decisions on the line.

It’s these double standards that infuriated Celtic supporters, and rightly so. No-one of a green and white persuasion is in any doubt that refereeing in Scotland is poor, but the level of interest in the subject this week has been rather ridiculous.

A further issue is that referees simply have to do more to protect players in the Scottish Premiership. Nobody wants to see a horror injury and the longer that tackles like Butcher’s occur without red card penalties, the more of a risk is being run on that end.

Celtic fans are beginning to feel like the club should be more proactive in calling out these incidents, especially when we win. So far though, Celtic haven’t said much publicly at all.

In other news, Ange Postecoglou had another injury update after Celtic win over Dundee United.