Why Keaghan Jacobs should have seen red against Celtic - and why the referee missed it

The latest edition of Ref Review looks at two tackles in Celtic's defeat to Livingston on Sunday. One of these challenges brought a red card, while the other only received a yellow.

However, it's important we break down Christie's challenge in order to understand why his Livingston counterpart, Keaghan Jacobs, should also have been punished.

"The definition of serious foul play is 'Any player who lunges at an opponent in challenging for the ball from the front, from the side or from behind using one or both legs, with excessive force or endangers the safety of an opponent is guilty of serious foul play'," explained former trained SFA referee Craig Anderson.

Celtic defender Kristoffer Ajer was not happy with his opponent's challenge. Picture: SNS

"Christie’s tackle is essentially a textbook example of the above. It’s clearly a lunge, he goes in with a straight leg with real force and he lacks control in the challenge. His studs go straight in to Scott Robinson’s shin (picture 1), and it’s one of those where it is lucky Robinson had taken action to evade it because there was a clear risk of a very bad injury if his leg was planted.

"I’d say these are the most common circumstances where such tackles happen too - a player loses control of the ball and then lunges after it to try to win it back."

The Scotland midfielder was ordered off in the first half with the score at 0-0. It had a significant impact on the match as Livingston, who, in fairness, were playing excellently to that point, were able to use the one-man advantage to earn a 2-0 victory thanks to goals from Robinson and Lyndon Dykes.

Jacobs' challenge on Jonny Hayes much later in the game would not have had the same sort of impact, even if the Livingston man had followed Christie down the tunnel. There were only 20 seconds remaining and there was no way Celtic were going to get the two goals needed to rescue a point.

Picture 1

Even still, the champions were more than a little miffed at what they thought was a lack of consistency from match official Willie Collum, who only brandished a yellow card - the same punishment given to Kristoffer Ajer for his protests.

While Jacobs' tackle wasn't as bad as Christie's, it still could easily have been a red.

"I don’t think the Jacobs challenge runs nearly as much risk of endangering his opponent - he’s coming in from the side rather than straight on, and the point of contact is on the side/bottom of Hayes’ foot rather than on the shin or even ankle (picture 2). Having said that, I still think it probably should have been a red card," offered Anderson.

"You can see that his intention is to hook his right leg around from the front to win the ball, but ultimately it’s a very rash way to challenge and he has misjudged it pretty badly.

Picture 2

"It’s clearly a lunge (picture 3) and he ends up making contact with both feet and the level of force used is definitely excessive."

So why did the referee miss it?

Anderson explained: "I can understand it not being given, because it didn’t look nearly as bad in real time, but when you see it slowed down like that you can identify it as a red card."