Daniel Feliciano

Tue 3 January 2023 10:10, UK

Neil McCann believes the decision not to award Celtic a penalty against Rangers for Connor Goldson’s handball was “ridiculous”.

The defender handled the ball when he lifted his arms up towards his head as he looked to block a shot, but after a VAR review it was deemed not to be a foul and play continued.

And while appearing on BBC Sportscene (2 January), former Rangers midfielder McCann admitted he was “surprised” it wasn’t given despite believing it wasn’t an intentional action to make himself bigger.

“Ridiculous,” he said. “I think with the way the rules are going now, I think it’s a penalty.

“I don’t think it’s intentional, he’s trying to get his hands up [out of the way], but the way the rules are going now I’m surprised it wasn’t given.”

Harsh

We have seen some pretty ridiculous VAR decisions already since it’s introduction into the Scottish Premiership, but this wasn’t one of them.

Goldson is less than three yards away from the Celtic forward when the ball is struck and has one leg in the air after just missing out on making contact with a clearance.

As the ball is struck he moves his arms away from the ball and towards his head, but still within his body silhouette and the ball brushes his fingertips.

If that’s a penalty then we should see several a game with the amount of pushing and pulling at set-pieces for example, so on this occasion it feels as though common sense was applied and correctly so.

Had it been the other way around and been given to Rangers against Celtic, people would be saying it’s harsh and shouldn’t be given, so it’s best to just ignore and move on at this point because the result was probably the fairest outcome.

In other Rangers news, BBC pundit says star man made “cardinal sin” error in draw v Celtic