Brendan Rodgers’ team put on arguably their greatest performance of the season against Hearts, winning 1-0.
This Celtic team needed three goals and a clean sheet badly at this point in the season, and it was even more satisfying to accomplish it against Hearts, who had previously snatched six points from us.
After his two goals in the first half put Celtic on course for three points, Kyogo Furuhashi was on fire. In the 88th minute of the 3-0 victory, a Matt O’Riley penalty completed the points.
Although O’Riley’s conversion was his 14th goal of the season, Lawrence Shankland’s handball did cause some confusion among Celtic supporters.
Why didn’t the captain of Hearts receive a second yellow card?
Hearts’ red card against Celtic was stopped by the VAR rule.
Normally, intentional handballs result in instantaneous bookings. But in Shankland’s instance, no. The choice was made to have a VAR review of the handball, which is why the Hearts captain was not sent off.
Kevin Clancy, the match referee, never issued a yellow card prior to the VAR inspection. Clancy is also unable to award a second yellow card as VAR is only able to handle retrospective red card offenses—not yellow cards.
Therefore, given how obvious the handball was, why did the decision go to VAR? My hypothesis is that Clancy was blind, in which case VAR had to intervene to help make the right call, and he never witnessed the handball.
It was a truly strange incident, and it makes sense that no second yellow card was awarded in light of the yellow card policy.
It truly doesn’t matter in the end. Brendan Rodgers now leads the title race by six points after his penalty goal gave Celtic the victory. And at this point in the season, it’s all that matters.
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