Lennon quiet on McDonald controversy

eil Lennon refused to comment on the Dougie McDonald controversy following his side's 3-0 win over St Johnstone at McDiarmid Park on Sunday. 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.Scottish Football Association chief executive Stewart Regan ordered an investigation in to the incident, with Celtic writing a letter to the SFA asking for an explanation.The SFA's head of referee development, Hugh Dallas, explained that McDonald had changed his mind after being alerted to his mistake by assistant Steven Craven.As the furore increased, Craven reportedly became the subject of threats and verbal abuse and resigned.The inquiry, however, 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 is set to add fuel to the fire by giving his side of the story to a Sunday newspaper tomorrow 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."McGinn claimed his team-mates got him booked by referee Calum Murray at his second-minute opener after he went behind the goal to take the acclaim of the travelling fans.The Northern Ireland international said: "The referee didn't like me celebrating with the fans but I tried to explain that I wasn't near the fans, the players pushed me towards them."So the players got me the booking, definitely but you will never get a referee to overturn a yellow card."I think that's my first booking for Celtic but hopefully there won't be any more."I'm not a man to get too many bookings so thankfully it wasn't a second."I was just delighted to score."Saints boss Derek McInnes failed to hide his disappointment at his side's performance."I didn't think we were very good at all today," he said."We are better than that."Celtic are a better team than us but I would expect us to put up more of a fight to try and keep the points here."I feel as if we are capable of beating any team at our best but I felt Celtic didn't have to be at their best and they deserved the win, hands down."McInnes's disappointment was compounded by the dismissal of Danny Grainger for picking up two yellow cards.The Saints defender, booked for dissent at Celtic's first goal, received another yellow four minutes from time for a foul on Anthony Stokes.The Perth boss said: "It's disappointing and Danny has to learn from that."Not only did it affect us for this week, it affects us for next week where we will have to make a change."We don't have the biggest squad and we don't have a lot of defenders and midfielder so I'm disappointed."

Source: Team_Talk