Credit: Sky Sports/Michael Stewart on X

James Barker

Sun 10 May 2026 15:20, UK

Celtic defender Alistair Johnston was only shown a yellow card for his challenge on Rangers star Mikey Moore, something which Michael Stewart disagrees with.

Rangers’ Scottish Premiership title hopes are now over, after falling to a 3-1 defeat at Parkhead in the Old Firm derby on Sunday.

Danny Rohl‘s side took the lead inside 10 minutes through Moore, after some excellent work from Youssef Chermiti saw his shot deflect off Liam Scales before rolling into the Gers wingers’ path for him to slam home.

However, Celtic equalised through Hyun-jun Yang on 23 minutes, before a quickfire brace from Daizen Maeda in the opening 15 minutes of the second half saw Martin O’Neill’s men take a 3-1 lead.

That’s how the scoreline would end too, with Rangers now suffering three defeats in a row for the first time since 2000.

What did Michael Stewart say about Alistair Johnston incident?

With the scores level at 1-1 as the opening 45 minutes drew towards its conclusion, one of Sunday’s big Old Firm flashpoints occurred.

It involved Celtic defender Johnston and Rangers winger Moore respectively, with the former flying into a tackle on the latter.

Moore received the ball in space on the Rangers left, but his inability to trap the ball with his first touch left it there to be won in a 50-50 challenge with Johnston.

The Celtic man certainly took the ball, but he did so by lunging in with two feet off the ground, and his left boot caught Moore just above the ankle in what could easily have been a very nasty injury for the Gers star.

Johnston escaped with just a yellow card, with VAR not feeling there was anything in the incident to upgrade that colour to red.

Former player-turned pundit, Stewart, certainly disagrees with that, as he wrote via his X account: “A good many people feared VAR/officiating would have a huge part to play in the title race.

“Hopefully it isn’t decisive but deary me. How the VAR can look at the replays and not see a red card has occurred is wild.”

Johnston’s foul on Moore shows VAR is a lost project

VAR was supposed to be the golden bullet to on-field officiating mistakes, arriving to amend and interfere in ‘clear and obvious’ situations.

If that Johnston foul on Moore isn’t an example of a clear and obvious refereeing mistake needing to be sorted out, then who knows what is.

The Celtic defender is completely off the ground and clearly lands a boot above Moore’s ankle, with only luck preventing the Gers winger from not suffering a twist or even a break here.

How that hasn’t been overturned to a red card, only those inside the VAR room know, but the fact it wasn’t proves that VAR isn’t a golden bullet whatsoever, and is merely just an extension to subjective on-field refereeing decisions.

If it was a different VAR team, there’s every chance that does turn into a red card, so we’ve really not solved anything with this project, as it still makes headlines across the footballing world every week for this exact reason.

Updated 24/7 with expert analysis from the heart of Govan.