Celtic off to a stuttering start

Celtic 1 St Mirren 0

MacPherson slams referee Smith

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LUCKY BHOY: Celtic's Barry Robson celebrates scoring the Hoops’ winning penalty with Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink at Parkhead.

ST MIRREN manager Gus MacPherson blasted referee Eddie Smith after awarding Celtic a controversial penalty at Parkhead.

With the SPL champions toiling with an hour gone, referee Smith adjudged Will Haining to have fouled Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink inside the box and then sent the Saints defender off.

Barry Robson scored from the spot although, in keeping with a untidy Celtic performance, he had to wait pensively as the ball just bounced over the line after striking keeper Mark Howard.

In a bizarre post-match press conference, MacPherson accused referee Smith, who awarded a dubious free-kick to Celtic at Love Street last season, of winking at him.

And amid his rant at Smith, MacPherson also claimed he had been one of several managers that had been singled out at the referees’ summer summit at St Andrews.

MacPherson, who has been a regular critic of officials in recent seasons, struggled to contain his anger at Smith.

The Buddies boss said: “The referee was winking at me. He would need to explain why, I don’t know whether he was trying to irritate me or not, I don’t know. But he’ll deny it.

“It’s so, so difficult to say what you really feel. We’ve seen it go on a number of times now and you’ve just got to bite your tongue.

“It’s not going to change anything. We lost the game 1-0 and it was out of our control, and there’s nothing we can do about it.”

Robson said: “I’m not into conspiracy theories.

“I was right beside Jan and I thought it was a penalty but some people have said it wasn’t.

“Jan was trying to set himself up and the guy was pulling at him.

“I would need to see it again, but at the end of the day we got the penalty and scored it and that’s the main thing.

“It wasn’t my best penalty but it’s only a bad penalty if you miss it and it was well over the line.

“I tried to drill it a bit higher but I didn’t catch it right, but these things happen when you take penalties and as long as it goes in, that’s the main thing.”

And Robson admitted the champions were fortunate to pick up all three points.

He added: “I don’t think we were at our best but you have to give St Mirren credit, they did really well.

“We had a good pre-season and worked hard, but we know it’s a long season and we will get sharper.”