Martin O'Neill claims the process around Auston Trusty’s red card against Hibernian was "such a nonsense" as the Celtic defender gets set to miss three domestic matches.
The 27-year-old USA international was sent off by referee Matthew MacDermid in the second half of Sunday’s 2-1 home William Hill Premiership defeat by Hibs after video assistant Grant Irvine flagged an incident at a corner involving Hibees midfielder Jamie McGrath.
Trusty struck down on McGrath’s arm with his hand and was sent packing after an on-field review and after Celtic’s appeal was turned down on Tuesday – leaving Trusty missing crucial league games against Rangers, Aberdeen and Motherwell.
The Parkhead club called for an urgent review of how VAR is deployed.
Ahead of the second leg of their Europa League play-off against Stuttgart in Germany on Thursday night, where the Hoops go into the game following a 4-1 defeat at Parkhead last week, O’Neill, 73, was animated in his analysis of the dismissal.
He said: "I did the interview after the game and someone asked me if we were going to appeal.
"I said that I was not sure because appeals in this day and age are seemingly worthless.
"When I got the information from the club coming back on what was said in VAR, I decided, yes, absolutely (we would appeal).
"I’ll tell you why. The referee, as he told me on Saturday, has seen the incident. It is not as if he hasn’t seen it; he was watching it.
"When he is asked by a very excited man in VAR saying, 'delay, delay, delay, delay’, and they ask him (the referee) and he said ‘no, it is nothing, I am just going to have a word with the players’, and then he has to trot over to change his mind.
"In time, we won’t need a referee. VAR will do it from wherever they are doing it from because that is what they did."
The Irishman continued: "They asked the referee to overturn something that he has actually seen. He has seen it and not missed the incident. Of course, that would be a different issue.
"He said it was nothing and that he was just going to have a word with the players. So, I have got a player who will miss three games. It is such a nonsense.
"I am all for people who have missed something dramatic (looking at VAR) in a game that constitutes something they should have a look at.
"But when a referee sees the incident himself and then what he is being asked to do is, ‘No, you didn’t see that; you saw something else’, – that has got to be debilitating for a referee. It’s got to be."
O’Neill confirmed that everybody available except defender Julian Araujo had travelled and refuted the notion that he would play a weakened team with the crunch William Hill Premiership game against Rangers at Ibrox in mind.
He said: "A weakened side? We’ve got very, very decent players here at the football club.
"All players, I think, in the squad have all played in the first team.
"Whatever side we put out won’t be a weakened team because the players are capable of playing.
"There’s been competition for places since I’ve been here, certainly before Christmas.
"Since then, we’ve added Tomas (Cvancara) and a few others to the squad. So there’s good competition for places."
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