SFA to make enquiry into Rangers v Celtic penalty incident John Beaton missed, says ex-PMGOL chief
Captain Callum McGregor believes Celtic showed their character and personality to battle back from two goals down to draw 2-2 with Rangers at Ibrox on Sunday.
McGregor delighted with Celtic’s fight against Rangers
Martin O’Neill’s side were blitzed in the first half by Rangers, who led through a double from 21-year-old Portuguese striker Youssef Chermiti and it looked like being a long way back for Celtic.
However, in a stunning second-half turnaround, left-back Kieran Tierney scored in the 56th minute with a header and a dramatic last-gasp leveller by substitute Reo Hatate – after Rangers goalkeeper Jack Butland had saved his spot-kick and a second shot from the rebound – earned a point, albeit the draw favoured William Hill Premiership leaders Hearts.
With nine fixtures remaining Rangers are six points behind the Edinburgh club and two ahead of Celtic, whose game in hand is away to Aberdeen on Wednesday night.
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The pundit wasn’t impressed.
The Hoops have also produced key late goals in games against Dundee, Livingston and Kilmarnock in recent weeks and midfielder McGregor talked up his side’s resilience.
He said: “Maybe the last four or five weeks it’s been quite evident. And football’s not easy.
“It never goes to plan a lot of the time as well. You can plan for things but in the moments where you’re up against it, you need characters, you need personality to take the ball and play your way back into the game and probably none better a place to do it than there.
“It shows everyone that we’re right in this, obviously with a game in hand which hopefully will nudge us closer as well and then we charge down these last nine games and see where we can get to.”
McGregor believes Celtic’s never-say-die attitude can send the psychological message to other teams that they are aiming to retain their title.
He said: “Obviously we’d probably like to not be putting ourselves in those positions, but like I said the game’s never perfect and it just shows you the team are still fighting.
“We believe in where we want to get to and it’s that attitude that you never know when you’re beat and obviously we get the equaliser again on Sunday, which on the face of it looks like a really good point.”
There were a couple of thousand Celtic supporters celebrating at the end, but for next Sunday’s Scottish Gas Scottish Cup quarter-final tie at Ibrox there will be around 7,500 travelling fans in the Broomloan stand, as per competition rules.
McGregor believes both that and the siege mentality they showed on Sunday could be key factors.
He said: “That’s what we want from the team. We know we’ve got a cup game to come at the end of the week and we want to try and feed into that as much as we can.
“Obviously, we will have a full stand as well and it’s just little things like that that can hopefully turn the momentum in your favour and that’s where we need to be as well.
“But the boys showed every bit of character that they’ve got and it was a really good point in the end.”
Willie Collum set to look into penalty incident – Hackett
While much of the attention has been on the penalty John Beaton awarded for Hatate to eventually bundle home, ex-PGMOL chief Keith Hackett claims there will be an enquiry within the Scottish FA over the one the referee missed.
Dujon Sterling appeared to grab Sebastian Tounekti’s shirt and bundle him over, and Hackett has told Football Insider that Collum will be looking into it.
“Well, I do hope that Willie Collum, the Head of Referees, will look at this and enquire of the referee and VAR how they failed to award what is clearly a penalty kick.
“The defender holding and impeding his opponent with contact. That is a foul and should have resulted in a penalty kick.”
The draw leaves the pair both in the wake of high-flying Hearts, but with the Hoops holding a game in hand, a win at Ibrox could have been season-defining.
