Motherwell manager Kettlewell felt that referee David Dickinson called it correctly when he booked Liam Gordon for a foul on Celtic striker Adam Idhah before VAR intervened. Upon viewing the incident, the booking was upgraded to a red card, much to the frustration of Kettlewell on an afternoon when his side lost 3-0. SUBSCRIBE: @PLZSoccer 🗣️ ‘If that was a tackle on one of my players, am I screaming and shouting for a red card? Absolutely not.’ Luis Palma got Celtic up and running with his first goal in his first Celtic start. The second came from Alistair Johnston in the second half after he nodded Alexandro Bernabei’s cross in at the back post. Then, Daizen Maeda came off the bench to add a third in the latter stages. The Japanese forward had clipped the post just before that. There was an insult to injury for Motherwell, with Liam Kelly going off after he was caught in a challenge. It was initially given as a foul and a yellow card, with VAR intervening to upgrade it to a red—a fairly needless challenge that will have frustrated Stuart Kettlewell. It’s not the only thing that would have frustrated him here this afternoon, as it finished Motherwell 0 Celtic 3. Motherwell manager Stuart Kettlewell’s post match press conference: “And we’ve all got a voice and an opinion on that type of challenge. I just feel it’s so harsh to give the red card. I think at the time the referee has a look at it, you can see that, obviously, big Liam has made contact with the Celtic attacker. But the first thing you see on the screen are still images, and it looks bad. Of course, we all say that sometimes it looks bad. I spoke to the referee afterward in a really calm fashion, just to ask what he’d seen in the challenge. He spoke about hinging the Celtic player’s ankle, but my counter-argument to that is you’re talking about the Motherwell defender, Liam Gordon, at full stretch at that point, not really with any force whatsoever, actually just trying to get a toe end on the ball. Now, I acknowledge that he doesn’t get that toe end on the ball, which I thought he did at the time. But I don’t think he’s come in with any kind of reckless intent. I don’t think he’s come in there to try and injure the Celtic player. You know, we can look at these things a million times on a screen. I think the referee got it right at the time when he awards Celtic the foul and gives a yellow card. I don’t know how many more times we need to look at that to try and determine or find a way that it’s a red card. But as I say, there’ll be a number of other people that will think it’s a red card. I’m only giving you my view. And that’s the idea: if that was a tackle on one of my players, am I screaming and shouting for a red card? Absolutely not.” #MotherwellFC | #CelticFC | #SPFL | #celtic | #football | #footballnews | #soccernews | #scottishfootball l
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