SPL Saturday September 20th

Celtic 3

Motherwell 0

1:0 Larsson 47
2:0 Sutton 64
3:0 Maloney 70

Att: 58,013

MIB: Iain Brines

Celtic:
Hedman
Varga Balde McNamara
Sylla Sutton Lennon Petrov Thompson
Larsson Hartson
subs
Maloney for Hartson 60
Gray for Lennon 72
Miller for Petrov 72

Every season we know we're going to be up against it as far as the refereeing decisions go, but in recent years it has been getting ridiculous. For example in the space of ten months John Hartson had two potentially game changing Old Firm goals incorrectly ruled out for offside. And last season it was becoming a joke the number of times the huns wound up playing where they would be awarded a penalty and finish their games against 10 men. It was even more curious that this phenomenon ground to a halt as soon as it was mentioned in the press, not to mention Hibs players being sent off for scoring against them.

This season seems no different. As Henrik Larsson rounded Gordon Marshall he was facing an empty net. Players with his kind of goals tally (and his recent record from the spot) don't dive and try to get a penalty in those situations, they think only of the goal. But this ref decided that Larsson had done just that. Gordon Smith was amazed. Even Marshall looked surprised.

Happily in the end it didn't really matter too much. Larsson opened the scoring with a superb header, Sutton capped his comeback with an excellent performance and nice goal. Pick of the goals was Maloney's finale. Any player in the world would have been proud of his strike.

Smiles all round, but like Agathe before him the previous week, Larsson has no right of appeal against the ridiculous booking he picked up because it wasn't for violent conduct. We'll just to wait for a Rangers player to pick up such a punishment before the powers that be take any action.