McManus fumes amid ‘shocking’ David Turnbull development at Celtic
Celtic star David Turnbull should not have been sent off in the final moments of his side’s game against St Johnstone.
That’s according to former Hibernian striker Tam McManus, speaking exclusively to Football Insider about the controversial moment.
As shown on Sky Sports (25 December), the 23-year-old was booked for a high tackle on St Johnstone goalkeeper Remi Matthews on Saturday (24 December).
Referee Kevin Clancy was instructed by VAR official Mike Roncone to have another look at the incident and upgraded the midfielder’s punishment to a straight red card.
As quoted by the Scotsman (24 December), Ange Postecoglou said he did not think Turnbull’s high challenge was intentional and thought a yellow card was a suitable punishment.
“It’s the wrong decision, for me,” McManus told Football Insider‘s Ben Wild.
“It’s a complete accident and it looks worse than it is. I think a yellow card would have been enough. So for the referee to take that long to come to the wrong decision, it sums up VAR.
“Turnbull is really unlucky to get that decision in my opinion. I wonder if the players were in the referee’s ear because I thought the decision was done.
“You want to see referees take more confidence. How often do you see a ref go to the monitor and stick with their decision? Be confident, back yourself.
“If that happened we wouldn’t get shocking decisions like these.”
The referee was only told to go to the screen after Matthews had received treatment for several minutes, leading to a lengthy delay.
Speaking to BBC Radio Scotland after the game, Postecoglou vented his frustration, stating, “the goalkeeper was getting treatment for a good three or four minutes. I don’t know why the referee couldn’t just go over and check the screen then rather than wait until the goalkeeper is up and running”.
In other news, an ex-FIFA official has hit out at Ange Postecoglou as ‘awful’ Celtic footage analysed.