BBC Sport journalist Tom English ‘glad’ with what he saw in Celtic vs Rangers clash
Tom English is “glad” the first-half penalty incident during the Old Firm clash between Celtic and Rangers was down to an offside infringement.
The BBC Sport journalist shared his instant reaction to Celtic’s 2-1 win on Saturday (30 December) via his personal Twitter account.
Rangers were adamant they should have had a penalty when Alistair Johnston knocked the ball out of play with his hand under pressure from Abdallah Sima.
The widespread verdict was that the Gers were unfortunate not to have had a pen, but it later emerged it was not given due to Sima being offside.
Giving his reaction to the game, English wrote: “Celtic have dominated the middle of the park, Callum McGregor excellent. Two superb goals.
“Too much wastefulness from Rangers. Nawrocki really good off the bench. Glad that ‘penalty’ incident was finally explained as offside before the Johnston handball.”
Inevitable
Now that the dust has settled, this decision – or rather the lack of communication around it – still seems bizarre.
The officials did not indicate that the decision was ruled out due to offside, as shared by Sky Sports and BBC Sport, until the second half was under way.
That led to inevitable theories that the officials were just looking for a reason to defuse the situation before it exploded.
Sima did appear to be marginally offside – but offside nonetheless – so it does make Johnston’s handball a rather moot point.
What wrangles, though, is that the officials made a mess of communicating this decision.
The fact that just one goal separated the sides means that any controversial call was always going to be heavily analysed, as has proved the case.
Rangers put up a good fight, but unfortunately things just did not pan out our way on the day.
In other Rangers news, a Gers player let himself down with something he did in the first half against Celtic.