Honest Mistakes: Derby Special

At 9:26

We start with a slightly vexing incident, and I say this, as the restart of play, doesn’t appear to match the findings of the VAR review, that showed an offside in the build-up.

Johnston & Sima tussle for the ball and as the ball bounces up, the ball clearly strikes the arm of the Celtic player. Even though this contact is accidental, it occurs as Johnston appears to push Sima out of the way and for me this is an unnatural movement of his arm, making his body shape unnaturally larger and as such I expected VAR to initially state this was worthy of an on-field review by the referee.

However knowing the protocols of VAR, they would have also checked the start of the attacking phase of play (also referred to as APP) and seen the offside call (which was indeed marginally offside) and as this offside incident occurred before the hand ball, therefore no penalty to Rangers as the Celtic defensive free kick for offside occurred first.

If the game had then restarted with this free kick to Celtic, no issues.

However, what appears to happen to me, is that the offside is not initially considered by VAR. Instead, they go with the referee’s original decision to restart with a goal kick. This implies they decided there was not a hand ball offence committed by Johnston and so the referee restarted play with his original decision of the goal kick.

VERDICT: Due to the information provided about the Sima offside infringement, ultimately the penalty would not have been awarded anyway, even though I feel the initial decision  for VAR not to recommend an on field review an INCORRECT one.  I believe a provisional penalty decision for hand ball would have been made, but then would have been cancelled out when the offside was identified in the build up.

Outcome

Not much in this one for me. Sterling clearly strikes the ball with force, before O’Riley can get to the ball. Sterling’s natural body momentum from the strike sees his body swing round and his trailing arm, accidentally catches O’Riley in the face. He is not looking behind him and don’t for an instant feel there is any intend in this secondary arm to face contact.

Verdict: CORRECT decision to not award any foul

Outcome

At 11:20

I agree this was a foul to Rangers but am not convinced this challenge warranted a yellow card as against Bernardo. They both challenge for the ball front on and it is Goldson that just wins the race. You see Bernardo slow down slightly just as Goldson strikes the ball and as such, both Bernardo’s legs on planted in the ground as he ‘puts the brakes on’. Goldson’s follow through then contacts Bernardo and he then goes to ground. I do not feel Bernardo was reckless in nature here and so am happy with the decision not to show a yellow card.

Verdict: CORRECT decision to award the freekick for a careless challenge but not show a yellow card

Outcome

Ball bounces up and two players jump together, Sima drops to ground holding his face. In real time, my initial reaction was that I did not feel Johnston had done anything wrong. He jumps with his arms in a natural position (which you must do when jumping off the ground in my opinion) and he gets his head on the ball just. Sima is jumping forward, and Johnston’s arm accidentally catches Sima who is putting his head in the danger zone so to speak.

For me, debatable if this is even a foul, but to suggest this was also a reckless challenge worthy of a yellow card by Johnston, I firmly disagree with.

Verdict; CORRECT decision to not show Johnston a yellow card here.

Outcome

At 12:30

Balogun puts himself in trouble here with his heavy touch conceding possession. Maeda then breaks past him and Balogun in his attempts to block the Celtic man, causes him to tumble to the ground and Balogun is shown a red card for the DOGSO challenge.

In real time I wasn’t totally convinced there was enough contact by Balogun to make Maeda fall to the ground as easily as he did. But after watching the replays, you can clearly see Maeda get in front of Balogun before the Rangers player puts his left arm across Maeda’s chest before then pulling him back on his shoulder with his other arm. After seeing this, the sending off is totally justified. Sometimes I talk about players reactions/body language to certain incidents. Here it is interesting to note Balogun has not one word of protest against the decision, perhaps a telling reaction.

Verdict: CORRECT decision to award free kick and send Balogun off.

Outcome

Verdict: CORRECT decision not to caution Sterling for his challenge

Outcome

At 14:42

Another interesting incident to finish off, as a late offside flag negates the potential flash point of a late penalty decision to make. Looking at the potential offside call, this was incredibly tight and my gut feeling was that had VAR been able to review, they may well have found Turnbull to be level and onside.

However, this would only have happened if play had been allowed to continue until the ball was next out of play. Then they would have reviewed both the APP for the initial offside decision and then if he was onside, they would next have looked at the potential decision of a penalty on Turnbull or not. However as soon the assistant referee flags for the offside and referee gives the offside free kick, this decision cannot be overruled – hence why Ars are encouraged to initially keep their flags down until play has come to a natural conclusion or a goal is scored. This then allows Var to go back and award the offside if required.

For what it’s worth, I didn’t feel there was enough contact to award the penalty either. Turnbull looks to anticipate the contact and although Tavernier arms to make contact with Turnbull, they arms are bent, it is not a push and Turnbull seems to throw his legs out as soon as any contact is made on his upper body.

Verdict: CORRECT decision not to award the penalty kick

Outcome