Martin O’Neill has revealed that he phoned Willie Collum for the first time in the wake of his side’s dramatic win at Easter Road seeking clarity on a number of key decisions.
Celtic won the match against 10-man Hibs but were left perplexed at a number of calls by the match officials and VAR.
While Daizen Maeda’s opening goal was eventually awarded, O’Neill couldn’t grasp why far side linesman Douglas Ross initially flagged the forward offside.
Arriving just before half time, Joe Newell’s equaliser was allowed to stand despite the ball appearing to first roll down the arm of the midfielder.
Celtic striker Daizen Maeda’s goal was flagged for offside before VAR intervened
Celtic also felt they were denied a clear penalty when Benjamin Nygren was shoved in the box by Josh Campbell.
And despite his side getting the job done thanks to Kelechi Iheanacho’s winner, O’Neill felt compelled to phone the SFA’s head of referees for the first time to ask for an explanation.
‘I spoke to Willie,’ he said. ‘I’ve never done this, honestly. And this time I made up my mind, whatever comes or goes.
‘I just phoned Willie. Just to see what his thoughts were on it. He was appreciative of me calling. I couldn’t change anything. But I was happier, all right. He seems a nice fella.’
Asked about the decisions in question. O’Neill added: ‘To tell you the truth, I thought they were pretty cr** really.
Martin O’Neill was unhappy with the officials’ performance in Celtic’s win at Hibernian
‘The linesman on the far side is four yards, four yards away, and he’s still raising (the flag) for offside.
‘When in actual fact, if he just allows it, VAR will decide it anyway, one way or another.
‘I didn’t know why, if you’re not up with it…. And that’s fine, sometimes it can happen. The thing has happened very, very quickly. But just let VAR decide that at the end of the day.’
O’Neill failed to grasp why Newell’s handball wasn’t called as a foul by match day referee David Dickinson or VAR Don Robertson.
‘I think the young boy has admitted to everybody in the aftermath of the game that he handled it,’ added the Celtic manager.
‘Now he’s wheedling out of it. He’s saying, ‘I’m not sure whether I handled it’. Well, either you did or you didn’t. But it looked pretty clear that there was a handball.’
Hibs midfielder Joe Newell celebrates after his contentious equaliser against Celtic
Nygren was trying to prevent Campbell from ushering the ball out of the play when the Hibs man shoved him to the ground.
‘After the game was over, I hadn’t realised how bad the foul was when the boy pushed Nygren over,’ O’Neill added.
‘That’s absolute definite. The boy’s pushed him out of play.’
Asked if his concern was that his side were denied the chance to close the goal difference to leaders Hearts, O’Neill replied: ‘Correct. Absolutely. That’s the whole point.’
With three games of a pulsating title race to come, the Celtic manager is hopeful that the narrative in the coming week is not about match officials and VAR.
‘People say, and I’m sure it is true, that it’s over the whole season,’ he said.
O’Neill raised his concerns with SFA referees’ chief Willie Collum
‘But now that it’s got down to three games, or four games as it was in the time, you might as well try and get the decisions right if you can.’
The most extraordinary season in living memory might well come down to next Sunday’s clash between Celtic and Hearts at Parkhead.
Regardless of which side emerges victorious after 38 games, O’Neill feels it will be wrong for anyone to claim that the side which misses out lacked bottle.
‘I remember, Bryan Robson who was one phenomenal footballer,’ he said.
‘When he became a manager, he was asked a question, I don’t know if it was about the Manchester United side that he’d been involved in and had finished second and he was asked did they bottle it?
‘He said, “well if we bottled it, what about the other 18 or 19 teams below that?” So, it’s one way of looking at it.
‘You’ll have to check the records, but Jack Nicklaus won 18 majors and was runner-up in 19 or something. And he’s one of the greatest of all time. So, I must phone him up and tell him he bottled it 19 times!
‘I think that myself (it’s harsh).’
O’Neill lost titles to Rangers on the final day of 2003 and 2005 and felt that a lack of bottle had nothing to do with it.
‘The time in 2003, obviously that had been tight the whole way through,’ he recalled.
“We had a run in Europe as well, and then we had to come back and try and score more goals than Rangers.
‘They were at home to Dunfermline, we were away at Kilmarnock, so that was tight.
‘The one that I still have nightmares about is 2005.
‘Having beaten Rangers at Ibrox, (Craig) Bellamy scoring the goal, and then losing to Hibs at home then going to beat Hearts but then just having to get the same result as Rangers who were at Hibs that last day. We were at Motherwell – we should have won about 12.
‘Their goalkeeper was phenomenal. It’s one of those things. The question you asked me, did we bottle it, that type of stuff. We lost after the whole season, and Rangers won it and deserved to win it.’
