“It happens all the time” – Michael Stewart on the Celtic Park referee.

As the dust settles on another Celtic win at Parkhead today, the main focal point was the performance of referee, Nick Walsh.

St Johnstone were unlucky to escape a red card after Chris Kane appeared to kick Celtic defender Cameron Carter-Vickers multiple times as he lay on the ground.

As Carter-Vickers retaliated, Kane also appeared to throw a punch at Vickers and instead of red carding the St Johnstone forward, Walsh incredibly decided a yellow was sufficient AFTER booking the Hoops defender for retaliation.

After that altercation, Walsh seemed to lose control of the match but did salvage a bit of pride by correctly awarding a penalty for a foul on Kyogo.

It was a truly mind boggling decision by the referee and one that BBC pundit, Michael Stewart, tried his best to explain, “There’s loads of bodies in the way and there’s a bit of a melee.

“Like so many other incidents, once the arms come up – whether it’s trying block somebody off or a push to get somebody away – as soon as you start coming round the chest it’s very easy to roll up and catch somebody in the face.

“But that was a classic incident where there’s been a melee, there’s two folk involved and the ref just comes over and, without much thought, gives out two yellows.

“You can break it down, look at it and go: ‘Well, that wasn’t deserved for one of them and it was deserved for the other’.

“It happens all the time.”

This was a really poor attempt at trying to excuse the a basic refereeing decision and it begs the question, “Is it open season on Celtic players?”

This article was originally posted here

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