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The National (Scotland)
The National (Scotland)
Sport
Aidan Smith

Raging Neil Lennon blasts Celtic vs Lazio red card call in 'reckless' verdict

Neil Lennon has blasted Lazio's Elseid Hysaj insisting the defender should have seen red for a flashpoint with Reo Hatate.

The incident saw Hysaj catch the Celtic midfielder with a flailing arm, but he was not ordered off despite replays showing definite contact.

The footage was shown in the TNT Sport studio and host Emma Dodds quizzed former Celtic boss Lennon on whether he thought it was worthy of a red card.

He vented: "It's shocking. The more I look at it the more I find it's a red card.

"It's a forearm in Hatate's face. There's a little bump and then bang, he knows exactly what he is doing. For me, you may deem that as accidental but it's still reckless. What they are looking at I don't know."

Stiliyan Petrov was also in the studio and added: "Definitely a red card. You can see the intention there, you can see the player knows what he is doing. It definitely had to be looked at."

Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers admitted their last-gasp 2-1 defeat by Lazio was a “devastating” blow after he felt they deserved to be in front.

Luis Palma thought he had given the Scottish champions an 81st-minute lead but it was ruled offside by a lengthy VAR check when the officials decided Daizen Maeda had helped on Alistair Johnston’s cross.

There was a bigger blow to follow five minutes into stoppage-time when Pedro robbed Cameron Carter-Vickers before spraying the ball out wide and running into the box to head home the resulting cross.

Kyogo Furuhashi’s early opener had been cancelled out by Matias Vecino following a 29th-minute corner.

Rodgers said: “I’m bitterly disappointed. I felt we totally deserved to take something from the game.

“We had a great start and scored a great goal. I’m disappointed with the goal we conceded, I felt we could do better with the corner.

“We were getting through them and it looked like a matter of time before we could score. We got a goal but unfortunately Daizen just got a touch on it and made it offside.

“I felt at that point we deserved to be in front, we had got into some good areas.

“To concede late on was harsh but there’s a learning there. You have to secure the ball late on. The learning is just managing the game at that late stage.

“We knocked on the door second half, if you can’t make the breakthrough just make sure in that late stage of the game that you are secure behind the ball.”

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