Carter-Vickers admits Celtic VAR controversy could come with title cost as he makes penalty confession

Cameron Carter-Vickers reckons the officials took their eye off the ball with the major VAR calls at Tynecastle.

But the Celtic defender insists the Hoops squad won’t do the same in the title race run in. Carter-Vickers was left fuming at Yang’s controversial red card and the Hearts penalty decision as the champions blew their chance to regain top spot in the Premiership on Sunday. Boss Brendan Rodgers lashed out at ref Don Robertson and VAR John Beaton for wrecking Celtic’s chances of capitalising on Rangers’ slip up against Motherwell 24 hours later.

When asked if those types of calls can cost teams leagues, Carter-Vickers admitted: “They could do. But we can’t let our focus go on to that. We have just got to focus on our own performance. As long as we keep improving and getting better we will be alright. It was obviously difficult. It was disappointing that we didn’t get the result that we wanted to. But, all in all, I think we can be proud of the performance that we gave.

"We created a lot of chances, even when we went down to 10 men. So, yeah, I think there are a lot of positives that we can take from it. Whether we won that game or not, what we have to do for the rest of the season is pretty clear. We will just focus on that.”

Carter-Vickers was trying not to let his frustration boil over but he admitted he couldn’t understand the need for VAR to get involved at Tynecastle. Yang was booked for a high boot – only to get called over to the monitor before being upgraded to a red.

The handball call against Tomoki Iwata looked even more controversial, with the Hoops man having his back to the ball when it was headed down off his arm. Carter-Vickers would rather the referee trusted his own judgement – rather than