One of the biggest stories of the last week has been the Scottish FA’s decision to hand Ryan Christie a three-match ban for an incident with Rangers’ Alfredo Morelos in the recent Glasgow derby.
It is fair to say that Celtic weren’t happy, as the club released a statement on the club website criticising the decision. Now a former Celtic teammate of Christie’s has had his say on the matter, and he wasn’t impressed with the decision made by the SFA.
“It is ridiculous,” Christie’s former Celtic teammate Erik Sviatchenko said, as reported by the Herald.
“There was no intention”
“That is just my opinion. There was no intention and you can see that fairly clearly.”
The former Hoops centre-back then went on to praise the impact that Christie has had on the Hoops this season.
“Ryan has 17 goals this season which is a stunning return so far.”
Christie’s ban won’t be forgotten about any time soon it seems. Celtic don’t seem happy about it, the player won’t be happy about it, and now former players are having their say.
What will probably be a bigger blow to the Hoops is that Christie will be out of action for a while with a groin injury he picked up in the aforementioned game against Rangers.
Hoops will miss key man’s goals
Ironically, the injury means that he won’t be fit for any of the games that he is due to be suspended for. However, his goals will be missed especially.
The Hoops may have to move in the transfer market to replace the goals that will be missed with Christie out of the side.
When he does return to action, hopefully the decision to ban the player will spur him on to deliver even better performances than he did in the first-half of the season. If he is able to do that, then the Hoops should end the season celebrating nine in a row.
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