A Jozo Simunovic challenge on Oli Shaw last night could leave him sweating over a notice of complaint tomorrow.
According to the Daily Record, the SFA Compliance Officer is set to look at the incident again. A decision should be made before 3pm, as that’s the deadline for notices to be handed out.
Celtic defeated Hibernian 2-0 last night without any real issues. Goals from Ryan Christie and Oliver Burke wrapped up another dominant affair from the Champions at Celtic Park.
One of the only dark spots to come out of the match was the injury to Emilio Izaguirre. Brendan Rodgers has since said the Honduran should be fine, but another incident has cropped up here for the Hoops.
If retrospective action is taken against the Croatian-born Bosnian, then he could miss Sunday’s Scottish Cup match against St Johnstone at Parkhead.
That certainly wouldn’t go down as a disaster for the Hoops. Given the fact that Dedryck Boyata has already returned and Kristoffer Ajer’s suspension is up – that’s a solid centre-back pairing right there.
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Simunovic hardly the worst offender last night
The idea is that Simunovic apparently led with his elbow. Shaw certainly came off bad after the first-half challenge, and was subbed at half-time. Whether that was a tactical tweak or an injury one is unclear.
Darnell Johnson put in a shocking challenge in the closing stages of the game on Izaguirre. That can’t be called up by Compliance Officer Clare Whyte, however, as the referee seen it. Craig Thomson brandished Johnson a yellow card – an extremely lenient decision given the nastiness of the challenge.
If something is done on Simunovic, Celtic can feel very hard done by it. It was a feisty game with several heavy challenges. The majority coming from Hibernian players who seemed intent to kick the Hoops off the park at times.
Cynical challenges from Florian Kamberi, Johnson, and Mark Milligan were all seen by Thomson. All three resulted in yellow cards. Simunovic’s just like all the rest of them, certainly doesn’t merit any greater a punishment.