There has been a lot of talk over the last 24 hours on whether or not Alex Cochrane should have been sent off during Celtic’s 2-0 win over Hearts at Tynecastle yesterday.
Cochrane was initially shown a yellow card for a foul on Daizen Maeda just before half-time.
VAR official Willie Collum did exactly what VAR was brought in to do as he sent referee Nick Walsh to the screen to watch the foul again and correct his decision.
This decision seemed to cause uproar among Hearts fans, and many took to social media to complain about the ordering-off.
OUTRAGE OVER THE DECISION
Ewen Cameron appeared on twitter yesterday stating that Chris Sutton, Andy Walker and Stiliyan Petrov, who are all former Celtic players, said it was not a red card.
It would seem these days that we are to listen to pundits over what the written rule in the laws of the game are.
In the rulebook under Law 12: Fouls and Misconduct, it clearly states “denying a goal or an obvious goal-scoring opportunity to an opponent whose overall movement is towards the offender’s goal by an offence punishable by a free kick” is a red card offence.
The blistering pace of Maeda was all too much for the young English full-back, causing him to commit a clumsy foul that stopped the Japanese attacker on having a clear chance at goal. Therefore, a red card was in the end correctly shown.
This decision was evidently a game-changer.
Cochrane was a stand-out performer in a Hearts side who for close to 45 minutes had dealt with the champions pretty well.
Celtic stepped it up in the second half and certainly made the extra man count.
While dominating possession, the Glasgow side took the lead on the 67th minute through Kyogo Furuhashi, scoring his 30th goal of the season.
It didn’t take long for substitute Oh Hyeon-gyu to make his mark on the game with ten minutes to go with a real poacher’s goal that once again shows how deadly the South Korean can be in the six-yard box.
That would be enough to seal the league for the back-to-back champions.
A fantastic win overall, but the real win was seeing VAR used correctly for once.
BOBBY GORDON
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