Kilmarnock boss Derek McInnes accuses Celtic talisman of trying to buy penalty and snubs question on Rangers job link

Kilmarnock manager Derek McInnes was unhappy with the award of a Celtic penalty.

Referee Matthew McDermid pointed to the spot after Hatate and David Watson came together on the edge of the penalty box. The VAR, David Dickinson, however, asked McDermid to have a second look and the official overturned his decision. And McInnes wasn’t happy with Hatate’s role.

The Kilmarnock boss said: “I thought the VAR decision was correct. My first thought was that Hatate has gone down far too easily. For me he’s waiting for contact. But I don’t think there was any contact. If I’m wrong then I’ll apologise. But for me it’s trying to buy a penalty and the referee has bought it as I thought he would. I thought, ‘he’s going to give a penalty here’ and he did. My heart sank and then VAR overturned it. But that’s far too easy to go down, far too easy from Hatate. That’s poor.”

McInnes also felt the Japanese midfielder had been offside in the build-up to Celtic’s second goal scored by Luis Palma. He added: “Having seen the pictures for me it looks offside in the build-up when it bounces back off the Celtic player. So I’m disappointed with that as offside should be clear. When I saw it on the big screen I thought he was offside and when VAR were checking it I was expecting it to be chopped off. There might be better pictures in the VAR hub so any criticism of that at the minute is a wee bit contained as I’m just viewing it on the pictures that I’ve seen.

“I showed the referee the pictures that I’d seen. But they’re obviously dependent on the people in VAR looking at different angles. I saw an angle on my analyst’s laptop. Whether he’s a computer genius and has played around with the lines I don’t know. But it looked offside.”

McInnes also wouldn’t be drawn on being linked with the managerial vacancy at Rangers. He added: “I’m not talking about Rangers. I’ve just lost a game here at Celtic Park.”