JACK ROSS, the Alloa manager, last night claimed that Craig Gordon, the Celtic goalkeeper, should have been sent off for a dangerous tackle in the Betfred Cup quarter-final at Parkhead last night.
Gordon took out Greig Spence, the Alloa striker, with a badly-timed high challenge just before half-time, but he only received a yellow card from the referee Alan Muir.
Brendan Rodgers’s team endured an anxious evening against their part-time opponents at Celtic Park before finally progressing courtesy of two goals from James Forrest and Moussa Dembele in the last seven minutes.
Read more: Celtic survive Betfred Cup scare against part-time Alloa with late, late show
However, Ross felt the final outcome in the last-eight tie could have been different if Gordon had been ordered off with Celtic struggling to find the net and with the score poised at 0-0 in the first half.
“At the time it happened I asked the fourth official if it was a goalscoring opportunity,” said Ross. “He said that he didn’t think it was an obvious one and that was fine.
“Having actually now seen the pictures, I would say that, in terms of the actual foul itself and the type of foul it was, that it was a red card. If an outfield player makes that challenge it is a red card.
Read more: Celtic survive Betfred Cup scare against part-time Alloa with late, late show
“If one of my midfielders makes a challenge as high as that in the middle of the park it’s a red card. Having seen it now, and looking at it simply as a dangerous challenge, I would think it should have been a red.
“But what I would say to temper that is that we carried good fortune in that game at times. Our goalkeeper played well, but equally, we got breaks at important times in the game as well in terms of some of the chances Celtic missed.”
Spence, the former Celtic player who has helped Alloa to 11 wins from their first 12 matches of the season, a run which has taken them to the top of League One in the process, felt the Gordon incident was a major turning point in the fixture.
“You don’t want to see people sent off, but he took me out quite aggressively,” said Spence. “It was a bit away from the goal but it was a bad challenge. It was a big moment because if he walks then they’re down to 10 men and that gives us a big chance.
“On nights like this we need those decisions going for us. I’m not shouting for anyone to be sent off, but I’ve got a cut on my knee.
"If I’d made that challenge or someone in the middle of the park had made it then it would have been a straight red. It’s like a different rule for goalkeepers – they get more protection.”
Rodgers, who admitted he had endured a few nervous moments against the third-tier club, declined to offer an opinion on whether Gordon, who came in for Dorus de Vries, should have been sent off.
“I haven’t seen Craig’s challenge clearly because the linesman and fourth official were blocking my view so I’ll need to look at a re-run of it,” said Rodgers. “I didn’t know it was a bad challenge at the time but I’ll have a look at it again.”
Rodgers added: “The main objective was to qualify. We always knew it was going to be a tough game for us when you look at how Alloa came through the group stage. They beat Inverness and Ross County – Premiership teams – so we knew they had great resilience in the team.
“We knew they had great mentality and character to want to defend and they proved that. We had a lot of chances in the first half and didn’t take them and as the game moves on you can become a little bit edgy – but we showed great patience and got there in the end. We scored two great goals and kept a clean sheet to go with it. So we’re through and that was the main objective.”
Read more: Celtic survive Betfred Cup scare against part-time Alloa with late, late show
Elsewhere, Rodgers denied having any knowledge of a proposed move for Joey Barton, the Rangers player, in the summer just before the midfielder signed for the Ibrox club.
The Englishman, who has been suspended by Rangers for three weeks for a breach of discipline, has claimed he was contacted by an agent representing the Scottish champions in his autobiography.
But Rodgers said: “I haven’t given it a second thought to be honest. I certainly never spoke to the agent that’s for sure. He didn’t ring me. Everything that’s been said has been said by the club and there’s nothing to add.”
Celtic, who thrashed Rangers 5-1 in the league earlier this month, can be drawn to face their rivals in the semi-finals, but Rodgers stressed he wasn’t bothered who his team came up against.
“You just want to get into the semi-final,” he said. “That’s the main objective and whoever is pulled out of the hat that’s who we take. One of our targets was to get to the final and win a cup so let’s wait and see what we get.”
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