Celtic battered Dundee to extend their lead at the top of the Scottish Premiership.
Celtic were sparkling against Dundee as they battered Tony Docherty’s team 6-0 in a display that left many Hoops fans delighted.
Brendan Rodgers was delighted with his Hoops players’ performance as the Celtic manager singled out Daizen Maeda’s goals as his highlight of the night.
As well as Maeda’s superb double, goals from Adam Idah, Arne Engels (2) and Nicolas Kuhn put Celtic on easy street and sent Dundee back to Tayside to lick their wounds.
So as Brendan Rodgers hailed his player’s efforts, the Dundee boss got all salty as he took aim at the referee and gave Celtic absolutely no credit for their first-class performance.
Tony Docherty’s bizarre Celtic penalty comments vs Dundee
Clearly unhappy at losing by such a margin, Docherty took the spotlight from Celtic’s players and put it firmly in the focus of the match officials.
Docherty told Sky Sports, “You know, coming in at halftime, I got the response I would look for from the players.
“We’ve limited Celtic. I have watched the penalty back, and Colin Stein’s in a great position and actually gives a free kick to us. I think there’s a barge on Mo [Sylla] at the end.
“Trusty’s gone down and get his head on it. I don’t think it’s a penalty kick. I think it’s really soft. And these decisions need to go for us.
“The referee didn’t have a particularly good game, to be honest. And so I think that goes against us. Not one Celtic player claimed for that. They all run out of the box.
“It gets pulled back, so disappointed with that.”
“And I do think the second goal right in front of me at the dugout, you know, Mo Sylla’s got a touch of the ball and the ball’s went out the park. Callum McGregor’s come across him, and I know it’s seen as a shoulder-barge, but Mo’s got a touch of the ball. So I think that’s a free kick leading up to it as well.
“So these two decisions, you can be coming in at nothing each, and I think our player, defensive organization merited that in the first half.”
Docherty laments Dundee mistakes and not Celtic’s unstoppable performance
“So that being said,” Docherty continues, “we come in at two nothing and really disappointed at that stage. But I think the second half, then it switches.
“I think our decision-making defensively was poor for the third goal. Everything we worked on, we don’t do and we allow Maeda to score. The goals coming on from that, I went through it with the players there.
“That’s just poor defensively from us, and we’re not giving ourselves a chance to win games. Hugely disappointed coming in and not at nothing each, I think our play merited that or our defensive organisation merited it.
“But then in the second half you’ve got tp take that responsibility, we’ve got to take that responsibility as a team that we were too easy to score goals against.”
Could it be that Celtic were just too good and that no matter what Dundee, or the referee for that matter, did then they would have still lost the game?
Rodgers lit a fire under the Celtic players last night and that was evident from the very first minute after the referee blew for kickoff. No team in Scotland could have handled them.
With Raith Rovers up next at Celtic Park, the fans will be hoping to see more of the same ahead of Wednesday’s big Champions League tie against Bayern Munich.
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