And they like to say our game is predictable. Yes, alright, Celtic and Rangers will return to Hampden next month looking to settle the first silverware of the season.
And we all knew that one was on the cards before a ball had been kicked over the weekend. But even when the final destination is already pre-determined, sometimes all the fun and drama is in the getting there. So four teams arrived at Hampden over two days and between them they delivered two matches which managed to take the breath away for a whole variety of reasons – and all on a pitch which would be better suited to tattie howking than trophy lifting.
On Saturday holders Celtic ploughed through the rain and the mud to make it past Kilmarnock but only after torpedoing their own cross-eyed narrative of the world being out to get them. Then, yesterday, not content with dropping his team-mates in it during the build-up by chucking insults at Alfredo Morelos, Aberdeen skipper Anthony Stewart then abandoned ship by getting himself sent off in injury time when there was still half an hour of extra time to be played out.
Meanwhile, over at Clydesdale House someone forgot to put another 10 pence in the meter to cover the cost of 120 minutes in a moment of high farce which will have had the conspiracy theorists reaching for the tinfoil helmets all over again.
Honestly, no other place writes scripts quite like this and that’s before taking Kemar Roofe’s match-winning cameo into account. Having finally climbed off the treatment table after almost nine months, the lesser spotted Englishman popped up with the goal which sealed his side’s victory.
And then quickly departed the scene again clutching on to his latest injury with no indication of when he’s likely to be seen in a blue shirt again. Predictable? This is Scottish football at its bonkers best and now there is one more instalment to come when
Glasgow’s nearest and dearest get back together on February 26 when the first medals of the season will be handed out. For poor old Killie, semi-final weekend was a case of so near and yet so VAR.
No wonder boss Derek McInnes couldn’t hide his frustration afterwards even though deep down he knew his side –despite performing stoically over 90 minutes – had ultimately been seen off by superior quality opposition.
McInnes could not question the commitment nor the application of his own players who emptied their collective tank in a superhuman effort to take Celtic all the way. But he did make a point of blaming Willie Collum and his helpers for falling to spot a blatant penalty when Giorgos Giakoumakis bear hugged Joe Wright in the dying seconds of injury time. And he was correct. It was a spot-kick all day long.
This, indeed, is where the roll out of the latest technology has done little more for our game than shine a light on the deficiencies of those entrusted with making the big decisions.
Collum ought not to have needed a replay or a word in his shell like from the man holding the remote control. That he failed to see what was happening in front of his very own nose is staggering enough.
But when such inexplicable errors of judgement are then reviewed by another set of eyes in slow motion and from various different angles, only for the same unfathomable blunder to be made for a second time? That sort of slapstick stuff merely confirms what many of us have suspected all along. Not that Scottish football harbours some deep rooted, sinister conspiracy plot.
But, rather that our referees are so accident prone that often they border upon being completely inept. So, yes, it’s perfectly understandable that McInnes was still fuming long after the final whistle had been blown on his hopes of leading Kilmarnock back to Hampden for next month’s final.
But what was a bit surprising was that he chose to bite his lip when it came to Celtic’s opening goal which was given the all clear almost immediately at Clydesdale House even though Daizen Maeda appeared to use at least one arm to bundle the ball into the back of the net from close range. As a matter of fact McInnes did raise this matter with the fourth official immediately after Maeda had deflected Kyle Lafferty’s clearance into the back of Sam Walker’s net.
McInnes was reassured that replays were being examined and pored over back in the bunker and the Kilmarnock manager naturally assumed that the pictures proved the goal should have stood. It was only after he left the National Stadium later on Saturday night that McInnes was able to study the footage for himself.
And it’s reasonable to assume that the inner rage he felt over the decision not to award his team with a late penalty was compounded by what he saw. There is a still photograph taken as the ball ricocheted into Maeda off Lafferty’s boot which appears to add even more weight to Kilmarnock’s argument.
In fact, it looks like a physical impossibility for Maeda not to handle the ball as it cannons towards goal and yet, somehow, VAR had it all cleared up within a few split seconds. Still, at least these anomalies might help to put the paranoia narrative to bed where Celtic and their deeply suspicious supporters are concerned.
Manager Ange Postecoglou poured fuel on that particularly toxic fire the other week when he asserted that the breaks could not possibly even themselves out over the remainder of the season, given some of the ludicrously wonky decisions which have gone against them already.
And yet, over the course of 90 minutes on Saturday, the big Aussie was eating his own words. Which just goes to prove that the propensity for Scotland’s officials to dumbfound ought never to be underestimated. If anything, the introduction of VAR has doubled the amount of their decision making and made things twice as farcical as before.
A word of credit here to yesterday’s ref Nick Walsh who got through his shift unscathed, calling all the big decisions correctly including Stewart’s straight red card for a tackle on Fashion Sakala which was the absolute height of stupidity.
Walsh even kept his cool in extra time when the wifi dropped out and the voices in his head suddenly stopped talking. This is Scottish football. And it’s a special kind of madness.
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