Why Lawrence Shankland wasn’t sent off for his handball against Celtic

Celtic’s win over Hearts was probably the best performance of the season from Brendan Rodgers’s side so far.

Three goals and a clean sheet is just what this Celtic team needed at this stage of the season and to do it against a Hearts team that had already taken six points off us makes it all that much sweeter.

Kyogo Furuhashi was on fire after his two first-half goals set Celtic on course for the three points and a Matt O’Riley penalty sealed the points in the 88th in the 3-0 win.

The handball by Lawrence Shankland meant that O’Riley’s conversion was his 14th goal of the season but it did raise a question amongst the Celtic fans.

Why wasn’t the Hearts skipper given a second yellow card?

VAR rule prevented Hearts’ red card vs Celtic

Ordinarily, a deliberate handball would mean an automatic booking. But not in Shankland’s case. The reason why the Hearts captain was not sent off was because the decision was taken to have a VAR review of the handball.

Match referee, Kevin Clancy, never gave the yellow card before the VAR inspection. And because VAR can only deal with retrospective red card offences, not yellow cards, Clancy can’t then issue a second yellow.

So why did the decision go to VAR when the handball was so blatant? My guess would be that Clancy never saw the handball as he could have been unsighted which then meant VAR had to step in to aide in the correct decision.

It really was a bizarre moment and when you look at the yellow card rule then it is understandable that a second yellow wasn’t issued.

In the end, it doesn’t really matter. The penalty goal sealed the three points for Celtic and put Brendan Rodgers six points ahead in the title race. And that is all that matters at this stage of the season.