Even Celts felt Well shout was a definite penalty
Motherwell striker Kevin van Veen said Celtic players told him the Steelmen should have been awarded a penalty.
The Dutchman was astonished that stand-in referee Chris Fordyce didn’t point to the spot when Boli Bolingoli handled with just over 20 minutes to play.
He said: “He reacted to the ball and punched it away.
“He said to a few of our players during the game that it was a penalty.
“I spoke to the centreback, Cameron CarterVickers, and he said it was a penalty as well.
“The referee was there and didn’t see it, but the linesman had clear vision to it.
“Everyone w h o watches it back on the close-up will see it was a penalty.
“It is just unfortunate we didn’t get it because it would have been a good time to get the penalty because there weren’t many chances at both ends and anything could have happened if we had got back to 2-1.”
Fir Park boss Graham Alexander claimed his team never gets penalties against the bigger sides and is looking forward to the introduction of VAR.
He said: “All I can say is we don’t get them.
“We should have had one a few weeks ago at Ibrox. We should have one here, blatant. Last year against Aberdeen there was a blatant one when the player has made the best save of the game.
“We don’t get them, simpleas.
“I’ve only been up here nine months, I’m still learning but learning quickly that it’s easy to give a penalty against us but very, very difficult to give a penalty to us.
“I definitely think VAR would have helped us. It would have given us a 1-0 win away to Rangers and would have given us a penalty this time.”
There was no doubt about the quality of David Turnbull’s strike that sealed the points for Celtic.
The midfielder said: “I knew beforehand I wouldn’t celebrate because I spoke to my family about it.
“They were asking me what I’d do if I scored a goal and I told them I wouldn’t, I’d just leaveit.
“Obviously I wanted to score but I didn’t want to celebrate too much because Motherwell helped me so much when I was younger.
“I felt like doing it because it’s a great feeling every time you score and that was no different.
“Hopefully I can score more of them in future and will be celebrating them as I want to.”