The reaction to Celtic’s League Cup win and the Rangers penalty controversy continues this weekend as Chris Sutton has his say on the VAR dispute.
Willie Collum broke his silence on the Celtic/Rangers penalty furore after he admitted the Ibrox club should have been awarded a spot-kick after VAR officials missed Liam Scales fouling Vaclav Cerny inside the box.
Celtic defender Scales said he thought it wasn’t a penalty at the time but after almost a week of headlines and furore over the incident, Collum appears to have drawn a line under it.
Well, almost. The admission caused a serious reaction from the Ibrox support. So much so that even Chris Sutton cannot ignore what the Rangers fans are calling for after losing the League Cup to Celtic in such controversial circumstances.
Chris Sutton slams ‘hysterical reaction’ to Celtic vs Rangers penalty controversy
Sutton wrote in his column in the Daily Record, “There’s been some hysterical reaction to Sunday’s Premier Sports Cup Final with some people even saying the match should be replayed.
“I’d be all for it. In fact, perhaps I should dig out my boots and we can have another go at the 2003 Celtic v Rangers League Cup Final.
“Remember John Hartson’s goal that was ruled out for offside when he was about 25 yards onside and Rangers went on to win the trophy?
“Let’s do that again. In fact, if we are going to replay finals for refereeing mistakes, we might as well have another bash at just about every final in history.
Chris Sutton nails Rangers’ ‘narrative’ over Celtic penalty incident
That reaction has been over-the-top but not as much as Rangers fans claiming they were ‘robbed’ of the League Cup after Celtic went on to win it on spot kicks.
Sutton was having none of that either and continued, “There’s been a narrative that they were robbed at Hampden and they played really well. Excuse me, didn’t they concede three goals? And against a Celtic team that wasn’t really firing on all cylinders?
“Are we handing out more moral trophies again because Rangers didn’t get pumped? This isn’t the Ibrox club I came up against.
They are using the big decision as a crutch when in reality they finished second best to Celtic once more.”
Sutton isn’t the first pundit to point this out. Kris Boyd also admitted the reality of Celtic beating Rangers when he said that his old club still failed to beat Brendan Rodgers’ side even when they were not at their best.
Any talk of a replay is nonsense and smacks of a fanbase clutching at straws and struggling to cope with a simple truth.
Even when Celtic were at their worst, Rangers threw all that they had at the Parkhead club and still couldn’t come up with that elusive win. That’s the ‘narrative’ Celtic’s rivals should really be focusing on.
