Nick denies Celtic stonewaller exists loaded VAR snipe in wake of ‘soft’ penalty

The Hibs boss reckons his side were victim of a VAR call against Celtic as his men were swept aside.

Unbowed Nick Montgomery has claimed Hibs were on the receiving end of a “soft” penalty in their 4-1 drubbing against Celtic.

The Easter Road boss believes the call from VAR to send John Beaton to the monitor for a foul on Alistair Johnston from Lewis Stevenson. Montgomery believes it wasn’t a penalty despite a Hibs player barely questioning it after the man in the middle only needed a brief second look once he watched the replay.

But the former Scotland U21 international isn’t buying it and expressed his displeasure with the decision that allowed Luis Palma to make it 3-0. “The most disappointing thing was the manner of the goals we conceded,” he told Sportsound. They never truly sliced us open; it was our own fault, simply terrible defence. We had two great chances in the first half, both one-on-one. If one of those goes in, we’ll be able to get back into the game.

“Second half, we started brightly and, for me, it’s a real soft penalty (for Celtic’s third goal). I’ve lost count of how many incidents like that we’ve had this season and they never go to the screen. I don’t think anybody expected them to give a penalty.

“Lewis Stevenson went down the side of him rather than the back.” If you slow down everything, I’m sure there will be a lot more fouls and penalties called every game. That crushed any momentum we had, but we persisted and scored again.

“We played some good stuff in patches.” The first two objectives are preventable. I believe we confined them to very few big chances, and I believe we had the two best chances of the first half, and Joe Hart does not stop two point-blank shots on another day.

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