Lennon quiet on referee controversy

01 November 2010 10:38

Neil Lennon will keep his counsel for now following the revelation that referee Dougie McDonald failed to report correctly the reasons behind his decision to rescind a penalty for Celtic in the game against Dundee United at Tannadice a fortnight ago.

There was some confusion as to why McDonald had changed his mind after initially pointing to the spot when United keeper Dusan Pernis had challenged Gary Hooper and an inquiry discovered that McDonald had quickly realised his mistake and changed his mind, but had not made that clear in his report, which earned him a warning.

It is believed that Craven, who has since resigned, is set to add fuel to the fire by giving his side of the story to a Sunday newspaper but after the 3-0 win over St Johnstone at McDiarmid Park, Lennon said: "I have been so engrossed in today's game, I don't know what the findings are yet so I can't make a comment until I know the full story. But there will possibly be a comment - it depends."

A Niall McGinn double and a strike from Emilio Izaguirre completed a comfortable afternoon's work for the visitors who had to withdraw skipper Shaun Maloney minutes before the kick-off with a stomach bug complaint.

"I am delighted with the goals, the clean sheet and the performance," said Lennon, who also dropped under-fire defender Glenn Loovens to give fit-again Thomas Rogne his first start of the season.

"It was a big win for us in the context of the week and we were very good today.

"We had a blow before the game when Shaun Maloney failed to shrug off a bug so we had to re-jig the team and put Niall on the left and bring in Cha Du-Ri on the right.

"We have competition for places and we are looking for a standard in the team.

"We conceded five goals in the previous two games so we decided to re-jig the back four.

"Izaguirre was top drawer, he is learning to adapt to the Scottish climate and Mark Wilson had a great game as well. Rogne, considering he has been out for so long, was superb."

Source: PA