Referee gets mixed report from Celts

Anderlecht 1 Celtic 0

John Hartson accused referee Fritz Stuchlik of costing Celtic Champions League points last night – but team-mate Henrik Larsson made a case for official’s defence.

Austrian Stuchlik, who controversially gave Lithuania a penalty against Scotland in a Euro 2004 qualifier, did Martin O’Neill’s men a favour by showing Anderlecht captain Glen de Boeck his second yellow card for bringing down Hartson in the 26th minute of the Group A clash.

But Hartson was furious with the official and his assistant soon after when he ruled out his goal for offside after Daniel Zitka had failed to hold Henrik Larsson’s effort.

“I thought I had scored in the first-half,” sighed Hartson. “It is one of those strange decisions.

“If Henrik scored from the header would he rule it out for offside? Probably not. But if the goalkeeper hands it to me then I think it should have counted.”

Celtic also felt they should have had a penalty when Larsson went down in the box under the challenge of Olivier Deschacht, but Larsson confessed that the referee had got it right.

“It was not a penalty when I went down in the first-half,” he admitted. “There is no point in saying otherwise – you have to be honest about these things.”

Hartson felt the referee did make the right decision in sending off the Anderlecht captain.

“I think the boy deserved to be sent off because he definitely had hold of my jersey,” he said. “But we are disappointed that with 11 men we could not capitalise.”

Larsson admitted Celtic have only themselves to blame for not winning their first Champions League match away from home in five attempts.

The Swede explained: “We got two good chances in the first half and we should have scored at least one of them which would have made it a different game.

“In the end we were not good enough to get through their defenders which is all very disappointing.

“We were pressing forward and they caught us on the counter attack and this was not one of our best performances.”

But despite the latest setback, which leaves Celtic bottom of Group A – one point behind Lyon and Anderlecht and two adrift of Bayern Munich – Hartson is still confident of glory.

“We have two home games now on the bounce,” said the Welshman. “Parkhead has become a bit of a fortress in recent years and we have to make the most of that.

“This was one of the those nights, but I felt the balance of play was in our favour although we maybe did not do enough to win.

“But I saw enough to say that we can still beat them at Parkhead. I thought we did enough here but it wasn’t to be.

“We are still upbeat about this as there is a long way to go in the group. We have two games at home out of the last three and we play a team away that we have already beaten.”

Larsson was also far from depressed about their chances of getting through to the next stage of the competition.

“We still have a chance,” he concluded. “The leaders have only five points and we have three so it is all to play for.

“The bottom line is if you don’t score then you are not going to win games.”

Dindane Aruna did score to revive Anderlecht’s hopes, but coach Hugo Broos is not getting carried away ahead of the second part of the double header in a fortnight.

“That will be another game,” he said. “They will be at home and I don’t think they will play the same way. But there is more pressure on Celtic now.”