Neil Lennon suggests Brendan Rodgers overstepped mark with John Beaton remarks - 'there's history between them'

Former Celtic manager has say on Rodgers’ post-match comments after Hearts defeat

Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers questioned John Beaton's VAR interventions during the 2-0 defeat to Hearts on Sunday.

Neil Lennon believes Brendan Rodgers might have overstepped the mark by name-checking VAR official John Beaton after Sunday’s controversial Premiership clash between Hearts and Celtic.

Lennon was quick to add that he was a fine one to preach about comments made while the dust is still settling post-match. Rodgers was left seething by a number of decisions by referee Don Robertson following invitations from Beaton to watch replays of incidents – including Yang Hyun-Jun’s high boot offence on Hearts defender Alex Cochrane – on the pitchside monitor.

Yang saw his initial yellow card upgraded to red, which meant Celtic were forced to play the remaining 74 minutes with ten men. They ended up losing 2-0 to spurn the chance to overhaul Rangers at the top of the table.

Neil Lennon was promoting Viaplay’s live and exclusive coverage of Celtic v Livingston and Hibernian v Rangers on Sunday. Viaplay is available to stream from viaplay.com or via your TV provider on Sky, Virgin TV and Amazon Prime as an add-on subscription. (Photo by Craig Foy / SNS Group)

Celtic also had complaints about the penalty from which Hearts took the lead, with Robertson again invited to the monitor to review a potential handball offence against Tomoki Iwata.

Rodgers did not miss his target afterwards, singling out Beaton for influencing the outcome of the game. “The game was refereed outside the field today,” he said. He added: "You probably actually have to ask John Beaton in VAR what he's seeing."

The Celtic manager could now be facing an SFA charge.

Lennon understood the passion but wondered about the wisdom of drawing Beaton into the equation so publicly. Beaton was the focus of scrutiny after Rangers defeated Celtic 1-0 at Ibrox in December 2018 during Rodgers’ first spell at Celtic, with the club releasing a statement calling for the referee to be allowed to explain in public those decisions questioned by the club.

Police were later called in by Beaton due to the amount of abuse he received online and via text messages after his contact details were leaked. Lennon was uneasy about making Beaton the villain of the piece again.

“I’m a little bit uncomfortable about that but it’s not for me to say,” he said. “That’s for other people to maybe take him (Rodgers) to one side and have a word with him on it. Obviously there’s a history between Brendan and John from one of the games at Ibrox a few years ago and obviously he’s emotional after the game. But again, it’s Don’s decision, ultimately. John’s just told him to come and have a look at the incident.

"Listen, people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones and I’m the last person to be criticising anyone for comments after a game. So he’s upset and annoyed because it had a huge bearing on a very important game, psychologically as well going forward. But the bottom line is there’s no damage done, all it does is give the opposition a bit of encouragement.”

Lennon, who was working as a Sky Sports pundit at the game, wants more former players like him to be involved in the VAR process.

"As long as there’s no bias there," the former Celtic manager – and skipper – said. "But I’ve called penalties for Rangers this season, like the handball against (Alistair) Johnston in the Old Firm game and the goal that was disallowed at Ibrox wasn’t a foul on (Gustaf) Lagerbielke. There are some of us who are quite dispassionate about it. But you may get it where there is an unconscious bias but I do think ex-players should be involved to give referees a hand in that case. Because it’s spoiling the game.”