CELTIC right back Moritz Bauer last night praised Rangers winger Jordan Jones for phoning to apologise for his bad challenge at Ibrox - and admitted he was sorry his opponent suffered a serious injury fouling him.
Substitute Jones received a straight red card from referee Bobby Madden for lashing out at Moritz at the end of a game against Neil Lennon’s team at the start of this month that Steven Gerrard’s side lost 2-0.
The 24-year-old damage ligaments as a result of his late challenge, left the Govan stadium on crutches and was ruled out of Northern Ireland’s Euro 2020 qualifiers against Luxembourg and Germany.
READ MORE: Celtic right back Moritz Bauer aiming to "cause chaos" this season - with long throw-in
Bauer, the Stoke City loanee who came off the bench to make his Celtic debut in the Glasgow derby match, admitted he had been impressed the former Kilmarnock player had contacted him to say sorry.
“I didn’t see him after the game, but he called me the next day and we had a good chat,” he said. “That was absolutely fine with me and it came as a pleasant surprise.
“It’s a compliment to him and fair play. I was lucky I wasn’t injured by his challenge. I knew at the time it was a badly-timed tackle, but I don’t believe it was anything personal, even though it looked really bad on TV and social media.
“Unfortunately, he hurt himself a little bit, but that was just frustration on his part. I got away unscathed and he came off worse, but there are no hard feelings from me, everything’s fine.
“He’s been unlucky. I can understand his frustration because we played very well and had a well-deserved victory. I’m sorry for him because, whoever you play for, no-one wants to see an opponent injured.
READ MORE: Romelu Lukaku: Give Steve Clarke time and he will turn Scotland's fortunes around
“But I think it showed character on Jordan’s behalf that he took the trouble to call me and say he was sorry. As bad as his tackle was, it was good that he made the effort to do that. I’m pleased with that reaction.
We’re all good and we can move forward. I’ve made bad tackles during my career, although I’ve never been sent off.
“I was surprised when I saw the red card for Jordan because it hadn’t hurt that much at the time.”
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