CELTIC winger Gary Mackay-Steven last night backed Leigh Griffiths over his claims that Aberdeen defender Andrew Considine should have been sent off for his foul on the striker at Pittodrie on Saturday.
Referee Craig Thomson awarded a penalty after Aberdeen left back Considine had fouled striker Griffiths during the first half of an explosive Ladbrokes Premiership - but only showed the defender a yellow card.
The Scotland internationalist is facing disciplinary action from the SFA after declaring that Thomson would have red carded a Celtic player if the same offence had been committed to a member of the Aberdeen side.
However, Mackay-Steven insisted his team mate was correct and Considine, whose side ran out 2-1 winners to move two points clear at the top of the Premiership table with a game in hand, deserved to be ordered off for the challenge.
“We were little bit angry at certain decisions,” he said. “The penalty was one. It’s a clear goalscoring chance. It was a penalty definitely, but I don’t know how the ref thought it was a yellow card.”
SFA compliance officer Tony McGlennan could also decide to punish Aberdeen midfielder Kenny McLean retrospectively for a kick on the head of Celtic right back Mikael Lustig this week.
Mackay-Steven, though, has urged Celtic not to use the refereeing decisions which went against them as an excuse for the 2-1 defeat and expressed confidence the Parkhead club will recover from the reverse.
“We were 1-0 up and it is all ifs and buts,” he said. “If we win the game we don’t speak about it really. It is just one of those things. It didn’t go for us, but we need to move on. It is part of the game. We were still in the driving seat and we didn’t make it count in the end.
“We know it is only one game, but it is a big game at the start of the season. We want to stamp our authority on the game and we had it, but we let it go. We will definitely need to regroup, dust ourselves down and get it out of our system.”
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