Since Celtic choose to say nothing when it comes to referees, then they get nothing. McLean is referee, with Beaton as VAR for the Derby

Just over two weeks on from the refereeing scandal at Easter Road, the Celtic board’s silence gets it’s just rewards on derby day. Steven McLean will be the on-field referee, with John Beaton sitting in the VAR room.

This is the SFA’s way of giving us the two fingers.

We have been given the same on field referee as we had the day VAR Alan Muir decided to chalk off a perfectly legitimate goal.

McLean willingly accepted Muir’s call to disallow the goal, even though his call to award the goal should have been the final say on it.

The man in the VAR room next Sunday is the best referee in the land.

Well, in the eyes of the SFA and Willie Collum anyway.

Since he is somehow always involved on Derby day.

I don’t need to go into John Beaton and what we think of him as a referee.

I’ve done it enough times in the past.

We’re all very well aware of John Beaton’s history in this fixture, and it rarely favours Celtic in any way.

For obvious reasons.

I knew Beaton would be involved in some capacity, and we all remember how he refereed our game against Hearts at Tynecastle from the VAR room last year.

We also remember how Brendan Rodgers was incredulous after his call to send Hyun-jun Yang off, as well as plenty of other inexplicable calls.

Here’s a reminder of what he said at the time:

For John Beaton to actually look at that in VAR, supposedly under no pressure, and say that was a sending off, I find that incredible.

The second one (Hearts’ penalty) is worse. If you have a penalty go against you for that then there will be penalties every single weekend and midweek. I don’t know what he (Iwata) is supposed to do. Tomo is jumping, he got a nudge, he is coming down, the ball falls on to his arm and there is no intention to move.

Then you get the penalty against and he gets the chance to look at it and see it. That really left us with an uphill task in the game but credit to my players, they kept going, their keeper has made a few good saves.

But it was a poor day for the officials. I try to respect decisions and give the benefit of the doubt, but when I see that level of incompetence, which is the only word I can use, then that makes me worry for the game.

In such a tight title race – which it is, and it’s fantastic to be involved in – that can make the difference. And that today made the difference for us.

It’s clear the choice of referee and VAR has been made to give Barry Ferguson the best possible chance of a result next at Celtic Park Sunday.

We’re also well aware of McLean’s allegiances, especially taking into consideration his brother played for the Ibrox club.

When we played Hibernian at Easter Road McLean made sure we never got into any kind of rhythm whatsoever.

He constantly blew his whistle for minor offences, ensuring the game was an extremely stop start affair.

There is no doubt he’ll do the same again next Sunday.

There’s also no doubting that Beaton will scrutinise everything to the nth degree.

If Celtic score a goal, every aspect and angle of the goal will be analysed.

Every bit of movement in the run up to it will be examined if an offside can’t be established.

If there is even a hint of a foul, Beaton will find a way to disallow it.

I discussed in an article yesterday that Barry Ferguson will have his players frothing at the mouth before they head out onto the Celtic Park turf.

He will instruct them to take chunks out of the Celtic players.

With the duo of officials in charge, chances are they will be allowed to do so with impunity.

But if any of the Celtic players return fire, well, you know what the outcome will be there.

Celtic fans can no longer be called paranoid after the revelation of Muir’s audio before disallowing our goal at Easter Road.

It is blatantly obvious he was looking for reasons to do so.

Even down to his coercion of the Assistant VAR.

I don’t doubt that Celtic will still have enough to beat the Ibrox side on Sunday next.

But the task has just been made that bit more difficult by the appointments of McLean and Beaton.

This is what we get when our board refuses to speak out when it comes to scandalous decisions.

Scandalous decisions that cost us games.

Just like Muir’s did at Easter Road a couple of weeks ago.

What do we expect if we’re not willing to speak up about it?

The SFA are laughing at us, knowing full well we’ll say nothing.

Expect controversy in this derby, it’s inevitable.

Beaton and McLean will ensure it.

We’ll still win, but we’ll be made to work for it now.

Of that, you can be sure.