Andy Halliday has shed light on the frustration inside the Motherwell camp following the contentious late penalty that handed Celtic victory at Fir Park.
Kelechi Iheanacho struck from the spot in stoppage time to keep Celtic within touching distance of Hearts ahead of Saturday’s meeting between the sides, but the decision leading to the penalty dominated the post-match discussion.
Referee John Beaton initially allowed play to continue before being instructed to review the incident by VAR. After a brief look at the pitchside monitor, the official pointed to the spot for a handball by Sam Nicholson — a call that sparked disbelief among Motherwell players.
Although Halliday was not involved in the matchday squad, the midfielder discussed the incident during a vlog for Open Goal and explained the concerns being raised by his teammates in the dressing room.
He said: “We’ve not properly seen it back yet, so I’m not going to give my opinion until I do. I’m only going to tell you what has basically been said.
“So, basically the VAR… I think they’ve seen it as a handball. Obviously, the boys are not happy because they feel like Sam’s went to jump, Trusty’s jumped from underneath him and lifted his hand towards the ball.
“But Sam says he doesn’t even think it hits his hand, it hits his head. But as I said, we’ve not seen it back so we can’t give our opinion.”
Despite the controversy surrounding the winning goal, Halliday praised the overall quality of the encounter and described the match as an excellent showcase for Scottish football.
He added: “First and foremost, it just shows you you don’t need to go all the way across Europe to watch proper football because that was a brilliant game.
“I genuinely thought it was an unbelievable game. I thought it went both ways. I thought at the end, I thought a draw probably would have been a fair result. We said at the time, I actually felt that there was a winner in it, and I thought it was going to be us just because of a couple of scenarios.”
Conor Spence
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