Kennedy: Celtic feel 'aggrieved' over penalty call in derby draw

Celtic interim manager John Kennedy feels his team were denied a certain penalty by referee Willie Collum as they drew 1-1 with Rangers.

Kennedy saw his side take the lead at Celtic Park when Mohamed Elyounoussi directed a diving header past Allan McGregor, but Alfredo Morelos levelled for the champions 15 minutes later.

But Celtic felt they should have had an opportunity to double their lead before the Colombian struck, believing a penalty should have been awarded for a foul on Odsonne Edouard.

The French forward went down under close attention from Rangers defender Borna Barisic but match official Collum showed a yellow card for diving.

“I’ve seen it back and spoken to Odsonne,” Kennedy said.

“If you get any sort of contact in the box, when a player comes flying at you at that speed, comes recklessly in, knocks you off balance, touches you enough to go over – that’s what happened there.

“If he doesn’t go over, he is on the ball, he scores the goal.

“There is no need for him to go down, he is a goal scorer, he wants as many goals as possible. He is not that type of player.

“So we feel aggrieved that we didn’t get a penalty kick, we have to accept that and look at the bigger picture of the performance which was good.”

Kennedy said he hadn’t spoken to Collum about the incident but that the decision was “Massive. Really important.”.

Reflecting on his side’s overall play, the coach was much happier.

“Performance-wise it was good,” he said. “It was a high level of performance and we controlled the game.

“I thought we were dominant for most of the game. It was a great goal we scored.

“I’m disappointed with the goal we conceded but the reaction to that was good. We got ourselves back into the game, took control of the ball again and didn’t get nervy, just started to create chances again.

“Good performance, good control and a lot of opportunities, especially for a game like this. We should have capitalised and taken more advantage of them.

“And we should have had a penalty kick as well, which has a massive say in the game.”