SENTINELCELTS

Morning,all. 

All pretty much as it was in Scotland at the weekend. Celtic won,with neither help nor hindrance from VAR-bar the usual interminable wait for our four goals to clear. The huns won,with the aid of two rather dodgy decisions along the way. The first,a needless shirt tug in the box which,while clearly a penalty under the laws of the game,was definitely in that bracket of one that only the huns would get,while the second led to a red card,a free kick and a goal. 

It wasn’t even a free kick,as Roofe did a Brian Laudrup and left his leg trailing. I wonder if “Mr Why Are You So Good?” is in charge of some special training at Murray Park these days? Oooops,better not call it that. Brings back deeply repressed memories,I fear. 

On which,it was nice of the hun faithful on Saturday to publicly declare that they are indeed a new club,unfurling a banner celebrating their achievement of two trophies in those eleven years. Actually it is three,as they forgot their first ever trophy,the Petrofac Cup. I mean,I’m sure it is on their Wikipedia page and everything. Do some research,lads. 

What has changed over Ibrox way is that Chris Sutton has taken to squatting in Mick Beale’s head in the last few days or so. In fact,he’s moved in all the furniture,including a bed and a widescreen telly. Settling down for the long run and making himself very comfortable indeed. And all over a silly remark from Beale at a press conference,designed to show the hordes how strong and in control he is. All necessitated by the vilification he received from those same fans for allowing Tillman’s piece of cheating to be cancelled by a Thistle equaliser the other week. 

The Evil Genius is going to have so much fun with this,and it will run and run. Sure,he’ll let it drop-then wheel it out again every so often,with perfect timing,just to needle him. That nickname might have been earned on the pitch,but he has carried it over into his post-playing career. Sit back and enjoy the fun,especially if Beale is stupid enough to open his trap again.

Meanwhile,Beaton was warming up for his stint in the VAR control room on Sunday by overturning his own decision of a yellow card to instead flash a red via VAR advice at Kilmarnock. I’m at a loss with this system,I really am. One very senior and highly respected former official down South was fired from his position as a VAR monitor last week. Gone,out the door,never to be seen again. Another,the ref in charge of that game,found himself downgraded and publicly shamed. Up here,everyone searches for reasons why a particular decision is actually correct,rather than asking the really searching question regarding consistency of those decisions for ALL teams and in ALL circumstances. 

As in-no matter the colour of a jersey that they or their opponents are wearing. 

And then,on a similar theme,came perhaps the highlight of the weekend. No,it wasn’t our display against Aberdeen,magnificent though it certainly was. It wasn’t even the belly laughs provided by the time-wasting Villa goalkeeper making a twat of himself-twice!-in the added time against Arsenal that he was almost solely responsible for. No,it was some nutter from Sevcoland phoning in to complain about the ratio of yellow cards for us and his own side. 

His reasoning is very simple,on the face of it. That the huns get a higher percentage of yellow cards awarded per free kick conceded than we do. Well,there are lies,damned lies and statistics. And then there is manipulation of those statistics to suit your own argument,such as has been done here. The question is not why we get so few yellow cards per free kick conceded,while they get so many. It is though something that we have spoken about on here frequently,and that is the sheer volume of free kicks awarded against us. 

Yes,we play a high press when we lose the ball,but that means that our domestic opponents rarely get the opportunity to break through it and attack. So,the ref blows for a non-existent free kick at the merest brush of an opponent,play is broken up,our opponents can lump the ball forward. We see it every week. 

We have around 75-80% possession in most games,yet we usually concede at least twice as many free kicks? While the huns possession/free kicks ratio is more aligned with what you might expect,they do tend to only be penalised for the more blatant ones. Therefore,a higher chance of a yellow.

Most of our “infringements” aren’t infringements at all,much less a yellow card. The radio caller in question needs to go and bile his heid,albeit it is tinfoil-wrapped and oven-ready. I could say that he did us all a favour by revealing these stats,thus giving us a reason to explain why they are total bollocks. And I should,really. Because no-one on that phone-in was brave enough to explain that to him,and to the wider audience. And like I said at the top of the article,

All pretty much as it was in Scotland at the weekend. 

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Above article by BMCUWP