PA MediaMartin O’Neill believes a clamour for Hearts to pip Celtic to the title lies behind the strength of fallout over the much-debated penalty which led to Wednesday’s 3-2 win at Motherwell.
With the score 2-2 at Fir Park and deep into added time, the reigning champions were heading into a William Hill Premiership title decider against long-time leaders Hearts at Parkhead on Saturday knowing they would need to win by three goals.
But referee John Beaton was summoned to the monitor by VAR Andrew Dallas for a handball call against Sam Nicholson and awarded a spot-kick, which Kelechi Iheanacho scored with the last kick of the match to make sure any victory this weekend will clinch Celtic a fifth successive title.
Motherwell manager Jens Berthel Askou described Beaton’s penalty award as “one of the worst decisions” he had ever seen and Hearts boss Derek McInnes called it “disgusting”.
But, unusually, there was also reaction UK-wide and Gary Lineker posted on X: “This might be the worst VAR decision I’ve seen (and there’s a lot of competition). Extraordinary given the significance.”
PA MediaO’Neill, 74, in his second temporary spell as Celtic boss this season, said of the widespread uproar: “Am I surprised? No, I’m not surprised because everybody wants Hearts to win.
“It’s really simple as that.
“Everybody outside Celtic and the Celtic diaspora wants Hearts to win.
“And if it wasn’t Hearts, it would to be Rangers, it’d be somebody else, that’s the nature of it.”
O’Neill, however, admits what constitutes handball should be looked at again at the end of the season.
The Northern Irishman, who managed Celtic between 2000 and 2005, said: “I think a couple of things. One, I think it’s a penalty. I think he’s handled the ball. Also his arm’s around his neck as well too, but that’s beside the point, when you see it again properly, it is a penalty.
“But in the wider scheme of things, I think that everybody should be looking at this. Throughout Europe, we have seen penalties given when we all think, ‘well that would never have happened years ago, it looks very, very harsh’.
PA Media“A handball should be a major point of discussion in the summertime, to have a look again to see what they’re doing.
“I know sometimes European football is a wee bit different to ours. It shouldn’t be. It should be uniform. It should absolutely should be straightforward.
“This accidental handball, hands in unnatural positions and people maybe even being pushed into situations, I think all of that’s got to be looked at. But as the rules stand at this minute, that was a penalty.”
Hearts need only a draw to take the title back to Tynecastle for the first time since 1960 but O’Neill promised Hoops fans that his side will be going “all guns blazing” to make it five in a row.
He said: “I’m really looking forward to it now and why shouldn’t we?
“It’s a big, big game naturally. We have to win it, Hearts don’t.
“So the advantage is with them in that aspect, but we’re going out all guns blazing to try to win.”
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