Dundee Utd player discloses what Clancy told teammate about Celtic penalty decision

By David Walton

September 27, 2021

Dundee Utd star Peter Pawlett has stated that referee Kevin Clancy admitted he got the penalty decision wrong at Celtic Park yesterday.

The Hoops appeared to get away with one when Cameron Carter-Vickers barged over Nicky Clark in the box. Clancy waved it away, whilst Utd were also fortunate not to pick up a red card after nasty challenges by Jeandro Fuchs and Benjamin Siegrist.

The game ended in a massively disappointing 1-1 stalemate. That’s despite the fact the Hoops hit the crossbar on three separate occasions.

And speaking about a conversation Clancy had with teammate Clark after the deicison, the referee admitted to getting it wrong.

As quoted by Football Scotland, Pawlett said: “I thought we were hard done by and should have had a penalty. They could have gone down to 10 men. That’s a couple of weeks running now where we’ve had decisions go against us.

“It’s just unfortunate we didn’t get the three points. Did I speak to the referee? I went to him to apologise for the way I spoke to him. I said, ‘I shouldn’t speak to you like that but I think we should have had a penalty there’.

“He didn’t comment but I think Clarkey said he made a comment to him at the end of the game that he got it wrong. That’s disappointing but we can take the positives from the performance.”

Celtic need to tidy up rash defending after Utd let-off

It was most certainly a let-off for the Hoops. Granted, probably not more so than the Fuchs/Siegrist moments. Whilst Celtic were lucky to avoid a penalty concession, Dundee Utd were fortunate to have gotten away with a red card or two.

Even so, we have to look at where we can look at self-improvements. The barge from Carter-Vickers was far too clumsy. It was unnecessary and careless to throw into the bargain. You give the referee a decision to make, and plenty other Scottish football officials would’ve given him his marching orders.

But it’s probably systemic of the plague that seems to be going around our centre-backs this season. It’s not as if Carter-Vickers is the only one to make a dreadful error at the back this term. Carl Starfelt and Stephen Welsh have also cost us important goals in recent weeks.

There are times in the season when grinding out a result is all that matters. When it’s clear it isn’t going to be your day and you just need to get a professional job done. Our defence at the moment halts us from doing that on a regular basis.

It’s vital, from a Celtic perspective, that this is weeded out soon. It’ll take until Ange Postecoglou can decide on a defensive partnership he prefers. From there, it has to be all about getting rid of these basic mistakes that keep robbing us of points.

In other news, Germany to broadcast Celtic vs Bayer Leverkusen on free-to-air TV station