Andy Halliday in spiky Celtic fan spar as on air Hearts penalty gripe sees punter point to Rangers history books

Irked Andy Halliday insists Celtic should not have been awarded a penalty during the win over Hearts during an on-air spat with a Parkhead punter.

The Tynecastle midfielder was left on the bench by Steven Naismith but was unhappy that referee Nick Walsh punished Alex Cochrane for a foul on Kyogo Furuhashi that saw the Scottish Premiership leaders awarded a penalty in their 4-1 rout in the capital. The man in the middle would be backed up by the VAR room and Reo Hatate would step up to take the penalty - but the Celtic star saw his effort crash off of Zander Clark's post.

And while Halliday conceded the decision from the match officials would not have impacted on the scoreline, he reckons VAR Colin Steven made the wrong call to not send whistler Walsh to the monitor. Asked on Clyde 1 Super Scoreboad if he thinks it should have been a penalty, Halliday said: "No I don't. I don't think it had any effect on the result at all. I don't blame Nick Walsh for the original decision but for me VAR is there to overturn that awarding of the penalty. I don't think Alex Cochrane makes any play for the ball.

The then went on to clear any views of bias, with the Hearts star stating he sided with Celtic when they faced Dundee earlier in the season. He said: "I think a perfect example to compare it with is at Dundee, I contested it was a penalty, if you remember the David Turnbull one on the edge of the box.

"The reason I said it was was because the pace and ferocity the Dundee player went in - if you don't get the ball you are going to get the ball you are going to get a penalty against you. You look at it from Alex Cochrane - he goes in with his hands up with no intention of playing man or ball. Kyogo almost collapses into him, he is