Celtic Diary Monday January 26 2026: Down, But Not Out

Celtic slipped to third place in the title race after another 2-2 draw away from home after being reduced to ten men,

Look, I know we are enjoying a challenge for the first time in years, but do we really have to make it a handicap event?

After a heroic performance following an avoidable red card in Bologna, Celtic again were ahead , again lost a man and again ended up with a draw, this time at Tynecastle, yesterday. Frustrating for all of us, but you have to hand it to Hearts for utilising the transfer window and bringing in Steven MacLean and John Beaton to replace their injured talismen.

Both played their part, MacLean dominating the game, breaking up play, drawing fouls from Celtic players and making sure the rest of the Hearts side got plenty of set pieces to make up for their lack of ability on the ball. He encouraged an enthusuastic approach to tackling and blocking, with an amost telepathic knowledge of just how much the Edinburgh side could get away with without conceding fouls or bookings.

He even managed to talk manager Derek McInnes out of a red card when the highly experienced but ultimately serial loser manager barged into the Celtic technical area aggressively, which would normally be a red card offence, but MacLean managed to calm the situation down by ignoring it.

Whilst MacLean controlled the flow of play, it was down to Beaton to make the most significant single contribution when Auston Trusty had his yellow card upgraded to red after a Hearts forward fell over in front of him.

Beaton spotted the clear and obvious error and as head of VAR intervened, and Celtic were down to ten men, The clear and obvious error, of course, was that MacLean didn’t send off Trusty when he had the chance to, regardless of the offence.

Maybe it will be rescinded. Maybe it won’t. That’s irrelevant to an extent now, but it looks like Stephen Welsh might be staying for the rest of the season as cover.

What we saw yesterday was a resumption of the Lanarkshire Lodge playing their part in football, like they used to do when they felt they could change thngs.

We’re back to how it used to be, and this time there needs to be a reaction from the club.

The Diary has spoken in the past of the Perception of Bias among the refereeing fraternity, and explained , in detail, how even that should be avoided.

We don’t need a jury to convince anyone that yesterday it was a little more than a perception.

The CEO needs to grow a pair and demand to know why in a multi million pound industry, decisions can be made by anyone with a conflict of interest that can have an outcome that has serious ramifications, financially, morally and professionally.

In 2018, there was a need to explain a controversial appointment regarding MacLean…note the disclaimer at the end. (The Sun, Oct 22. 2018 )

“The Referee Operations Department does take into account “conflict of interests” which referees may have when appointments to matches are prepared. 

“It certainly was the case that Steven McLean was not appointed to officiate at a match involving a club for which his brother (Brian McLean) was a registered player.

“As and when Steven’s brother moved to another club, that enabled Steven to be appointed to his brother’s former club.

“The Department is conscious that Steven’s father played for Kilmarnock FC but it is not considered to be a conflict to prevent Steven being appointed to Kilmarnock FC matches.

“He has refereed Kilmarnock many times in his time as a Category 1 referee. If Steven’s father was active in any way shape or form with Kilmarnock FC then that would be considered a conflict of interest.

“To extend the parameters relating to “conflict of interests”, by taking into account connections which parents or even grandparents have or have had with clubs, would result in there being a stranglehold on the SFA’s ability to appoint officials to matches.” 

They left out the bit about them actually being supporters of a club.

I’m surprised Hearts haven;t moaned either. At the risk of sounding a little paranoid, though as we know, history has shown us we’re not paranoid enough, who benefitted most from a draw at Tynecastle ?

And surpringly, they did get a James Tavernier penalty as well yesterday.

If it wasn’t so blatant, it would be funny.

At the official level, it’s on Nicholson to act. He must confront the SFA and the SPFL with the suspicions and evidence that there is a little less honesty in the game than perhaps they’d like to admit.

If he likes, I’ll do it. On his behalf, because if someone doesn’t make a point now, we’ll be moaning about it even more come May, when Tavernier has scored a penalty or two against Celtic, and we’ve had a player or two sent off for not tying his shoelaces correctly.

And let’s have the audio between MacLean and Beaton made public. Which I believe begins with Beaton saying

” Jesus suffering fuck, Stevie, why didn’t you send the fenian bastard off when you could ? Now I need to come up with a story about the dog eating the tape before Willie gets a hold of it. “

Interestingly, there was a half arsed but noticeable media campaign that pointed out Celtic hadn;t had a man sent off in however ,many domestic games it was, a campaign given validity when Derek McInnes expressed surprise that Celtic had had a man sent off, as it doesn’t happen domestically….

Celtic need someone to monitor and address this issue. When the media make statements like this, and they go unchallenged, they creep into the national psyche.

The moment that “story ” appeared, the challenge should have been made for the accuser to identify which contentious decisions were being referred to.

The narrative suggested that Celtic had got away with a few, and, of course, supplied no evidence.

A but like when Andy Newport planted a story about death threats to, er,  John Beaton, and the narrative became how terrible it was that he was getting death threats, instad of actually investigationg the allegations. ( All documented in real time, in Diaries Passim ).

That’s just one thing the board has to do. Another is to go with whatever Martin O’Neill says for at least the rest of the transfer window, and probably for the next one as well.

The players were tired yesterday, which led to tired decisions, which led to mistakes. The frustration was also evident, mainly at the referees insistence to break up play…think about it..there were a total of thirty five fouls in the game, and four corners. If there were just six throw ins, that means there was a break in play every two minutes…..Celtic scored with their only fluid move during the game, presumably MacLean wasn’t paying attention.

A break in play every two minutes…and that doesn’t count how long the actual set pieces took.

That kind of thing is hard to explain away…oh wait, it isn’t.

But the squad does need supplementing. O’Neill knows we need one or two seasoned professionals to help get us over the line this season.

A Barry Robson and a Paul Hartley.  A John Hartson and a Roy Aitken. Players in that mould. You’d like to think there is work going on behind the scenes, but there is little doubt the management team are starting from scratch where recruitment is concerned.

When the season is over, regardless of how it turns out, there must be some kind of inquiry, and those heald accountable for where we are now, as a club, must be held accountable.

And if I was Nicholson, or one or two of the other directors, I’d be trying to make a case for another year in the job.

Because right now, there’s not a one of them who deserves to be in situ after the summer.

On Friday, we had this…

Today….