Motherwell midfielder Andy Rose has accused Celtic attacker Callum McGregor of playing for the late penalty that maintained their 66-game unbeaten run at Fir Park last night, claiming that his opponent “flopped over”.
The champions were trailing to a Mikael Lustig own goal as the game ticked into its dying moments, when McGregor burst through into the Motherwell box only to be denied twice by heroic home keeper Trevor Carson.
As Rose and McGregor chased the loose ball, the Celtic player hit the deck and was awarded a spot kick by referee Willie Collum, much to the disbelief of the Motherwell players, who were livid about a penalty decision given against them for the second time in three days.
To make matters worse for the Fir Park side, it was Scott Sinclair, the pantomime villain in Lanarkshire after the controversy of the Betfred Cup final, who stepped up to tuck it away and deny the Steelmen victory.
“I don’t think it was a pen,” said Rose. “In the box I have an awareness if he was going to commit and get to the ball first. But I’ve seen it back, I’ve planted my leg and he’s just ran into me and flopped over.
“When the ref blew the whistle, I was shocked. It’s a tough job of course, but for me it was definitely not a penalty.
“Did he play for it? Clearly. Of course. He’s gone down, and I think it was really soft. You see players going down in the box a lot and it’s happened twice to us in a week now.
“It was a massive decision. People have different views but for me there was no intent to bring the player down. He runs into me. He could have easily stayed on his feet, didn’t and it’s obviously cost us.”
Read more: Motherwell 1 Celtic 1: More penalty drama as Scott Sinclair returns to haunt Steelmen again
Rose believes that the referees in the last two matches have been influenced by the size of Celtic and their support, with officials unlikely to give such penalty awards to smaller teams like Motherwell.
“Are they decisions we wouldn’t have got at the other end? Definitely,” he said.
“At the moment it’s really frustrating. I think the boys were tremendous and Trevor Carson had one of the best games I’ve ever seen for a goalie.
“To only come away with a point is tough to take.”
Motherwell manager Stephen Robinson meanwhile refused to be drawn on the penalty decision, preferring to focus on a thoroughly entertaining game of football.
And he reckons that the competitive nature of the contest proved that his side could have matched Celtic in Sunday’s League Cup final, had they kept a full complement of men on the park.
“I’m not going to talk about the decision,” said Robinson. “I just want to talk about the game.
“Two good teams were both trying to win the game. Celtic had a lot of chances and so did we.
“Trevor Carson was outstanding. Let’s talk about Allan Campbell’s performance, Chris Cadden’s performance, Kieran Tierney, Scott Brown. There were some quality performances out there.
“Let’s not talk about the ref. I can’t control them. It was a terrific game of football.
“I’m not going to make any comment at all on the penalty. I want to talk about how good I thought we were, how much we bridged the gap and how we got about Celtic again.
“Perhaps if we’d had 11 men on the pitch on Sunday it might have been a really good cup final.”
Read more: Motherwell 1 Celtic 1: More penalty drama as Scott Sinclair returns to haunt Steelmen again
Robinson was proud of how his young players performed on the night, particularly 20-year-old defender Cedric Kipre, who turned in a solid display just days after being sent off in the Hampden showpiece.
“Cedric’s display was no surprise whatsoever,” he said. “He’s going to be a top player. We’ve got some very good young boys here.
“We’ve got limited resources here. We know that. We don’t pay much here but what we’ve got is a group of really honest boys who’ll do anything and run themselves into the ground for this football club. I’m so proud of them.
“We’ve got another chance on Saturday. Here we go again.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel