Dundee United 1 - Celtic 1: Cheated! Celtic fury at dive, United red card rage

FRUSTRATED Celtic boss Ronny Deila has called on the SFA to pull Aidan Connolly up for diving during yesterday’s fiery Scottish Cup quarter-final at Tannadice.

Tempers flare between Dundee United's Ryan McGowan and Paul Paton with Celtic's Virgil van DijkACTION

Tempers flare between Dundee United's Ryan McGowan and Paul Paton with Celtic's Virgil van Dijk

And Dundee United counterpart Jackie McNamara wants the game’s chiefs to rescind Paul Paton’s red card and clear him to play in the League Cup Final against the Hoops next Sunday.

Yesterday’s action-packed tie was stuffed full of controversy as Paul Dixon, Paton and Virgil van Dijk were sent packing after tangling with Calum Butcher, while compliance officer Tony McGlennan could also put several other players in the dock after assorted ugly flash points in the 1-1 draw.

Deila was unhappy with the penalty award that led to Nadir Ciftci’s late first-half opener and believes action should be taken – particularly after Celt Derk Boerrigter was retrospectively banned for diving against St Johnstone back on August 13 last year.

Connolly did appear to go down easily under pressure from Anthony Stokes.

Deila said: “It’s a dive and hopefully it will be the same rules for everybody. We’re the only team this season in the league to have a suspension for diving. I said at the time it was no problem because that’s the line that will be taken by everyone.

“The Scottish players have been unbelievably good. They’ve not dived but, if they do, it should be the same rules.

“I accept people make mistakes. But, if we have a rule where people look at things afterwards, it has to be the other way around too. I don’t see anybody else getting suspensions. I can’t believe we’re the worst at this in the league and nobody else is doing anything.”

The Norwegian claimed not to have seen the incident that led to the red cards but says Van Dijk claims he did nothing wrong in the melee that also involved Celtic skipper Scott Brown and United’s Ciftci.

He said: “I’ve looked at some pictures in the dressing room but it’s hard to see what happened.

“Hopefully everybody can play in the next game. Virgil just said there was a tackle and suddenly somebody was holding his legs.

“There was some kicking of each other to get off each other. It was nothing.”

But Tangerines boss McNamara reckons Deila is wrong, claiming there was contact between Stokes and Connolly for the penalty.

He argued: “I don’t think he dived. He caught him, although he hasn’t caught him on the leg.

“He has jinked past Nir Bitton and Stokes has come in. It’s thigh-on-thigh and Aidan has gone down as he got in front of him.

“If it had been outside the box, would it have been a free-kick? Yes.

“It was inside the box and it might have been soft, but it was a penalty.” 

Paton was wrongly penalised and referee Craig Thomson really should have taken action on the first challenge by Brown on Ciftci.

When asked if he was going to appeal Paton’s red card, McNamara replied: “Yes, I think so. Paul feels a bit hard done by for being sent off for nothing. He wasn’t involved in the incident.

“The referee should have dealt with the original challenge.

“It was a bad challenge that went unnoticed which sparked the whole thing off.

“It was a two-footed challenge off the deck. It was a bad one but it didn’t get dealt with properly.”

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