Celtic’s 6-0 demolition of St Johnstone over the weekend left fans buzzing, largely thanks to the dazzling football display put on by Brendan Rodgers’ side.
The Scottish champions were almost perfect, breezing past a bewildered St Johnstone team that seemed incapable of stemming the tide of goals.
With five different scorers finding the net, Celtic racked up their third consecutive game with five or more goals. It also marked their 20th goal of the season in the Scottish Premiership, all without conceding.
However, despite the goal glut, the tally could have been higher. Daizen Maeda had a goal ruled out, a decision that has since been questioned, notably by former SFA referee Des Roache.
The key issue surrounding Maeda’s disallowed goal was the involvement of VAR, with Roache expressing doubts over whether the match referee had access to the best possible view of the incident.
Roache criticised the failure to show the optimal angle to referee Don Robertson during the review process.
Speaking on the Behind The Whistle podcast, Roache said:
“I think the most telling view was the one that we didn’t see. It was one from behind the corner flag.
“There is nothing there. I’ve got to admit, when I first seen it, I thought, okay, that’s worth a review. I have a look at it.
“But looking at it and seeing the best view, which was never published, nothing whatsoever.
“So why are we not getting that? Because whoever’s providing, I know it’s Hawkeye who had done it, why are they not showing the referee every angle possible?
“The fact that you and I can see this on a Sunday morning, looking at it, well, why was the referee not shown it?
“Because that footage exists. So yeah, entirely wrong. And I actually feel sorry for Don.
“And you know what, you could almost feel sorry for VAR there, because I would like to think that if VAR had seen that, they wouldn’t have allowed it. They would not have allowed it. That was a goal.”
This incident adds fuel to an ongoing debate over the reliability and effectiveness of VAR in Scottish football. Brendan Rodgers has not been shy in voicing his frustrations with the technology. At the weekend, he once again questioned its application, following what appeared to be another contentious decision.
It’s not the first time this season that VAR has been at the centre of controversy involving Celtic. During the 3-0 victory over Rangers earlier in the campaign, Kyogo Furuhashi also had a goal controversially ruled out after a VAR intervention, prompting some pundits to label the system in Scotland as “tin pot.”
For all the efforts by the Scottish Football Association (SFA) and referee Willie Collum to improve transparency around how the video assistant referee is applied, problems continue to arise.
This latest debacle will do little to calm growing concerns that the technology is creating more problems than it solves.
As things stand, the frequent involvement of VAR in key decisions is raising more questions than it answers, with critical calls often going the wrong way.
For Celtic, it was a case of victory tempered by frustration, as they once again find themselves caught in the crosshairs of a system that seems to be consistently falling short of expectations.