Motherwell boss Stephen Robinson admits that he can’t see the point in discussing the decisions that have gone against his side this week with head of refereeing operations John Fleming, despite a club statement seeking clarity on the controversial calls.
The Fir Park club have been incensed with the penalties that have been awarded to Celtic in both Sunday’s Betfred Cup final and Wednesday night’s league meeting between the sides.
While Robinson has been as irked as anyone else at the club by the decisions that have gone against his men, he says that speaking to the likes of Fleming won’t change anything now, and his energy would be better focused on the third meeting between the sides in six days this afternoon at Celtic Park.
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“[The statement] came from above me,” said Robinson. “People above me have gone and spoken to the John Flemings of this world, but the reality is that it’s not going to change anything or reverse any decisions, rightly or wrongly.
“I just concentrate on what’s going on on the football pitch, that’s all I can control, my players and how they are going to prepare.
“Did I speak to John? No. What for? He’s not going to change the referee’s mind or clarify whether it was right or wrong, they won’t do that.
“I’ve got enough to focus on in taking on a team that’s 66 games unbeaten without speaking to other people.”
Robinson is taking heart ahead of today’s final instalment in a spiky trilogy by the way in which his men have competed with the champions thus far.
And he thinks that the edge that is developing between the teams is a feather in the cap of Motherwell, who shouldn’t even be on the radar of a club the size of Celtic’s as a rival.
“I think there’s a wee bit of rivalry in it, and that’s credit to our players that we’re creating a little bit of rivalry with Celtic,” he said.
“Come on, little Motherwell creating rivalry with Celtic? But there is.
“It becomes a little bit of a tactical battle as well, and obviously they have a lot more resources and people that they can change things around with. It’s the third game against them in six days, so it’s a huge test.
“Nobody is going to talk about the penalty the other night if it’s 5-0 to Celtic, nobody would care. So, the fact is that we’ve made it really competitive, and I’m sure Brendan (Rodgers) would be the first to admit that and he’ll give us a lot of credit.”
Robinson thinks that his men deserve more credit than they are getting amid the noise of the controversy surrounding the two games this week.
“People have forgotten amongst all this furore about it we’ve actually drawn with Celtic,” he said.
“The stats are, we’ve kept nine clean sheets as opposed to seven last year, we’ve won 14 games already as opposed to 13 in the whole of last season, and we’ve taken four points off of Celtic and Aberdeen when we took none last year.
“Nobody has spoken about that, which is the annoying bit. All we’ve spoken about is what might have been.
“Celtic won the cup, fact. Celtic are a very good team and we took a point on Wednesday night, and we go again in front of 50,000 people.
“We’re trying to sell Scottish football, and it’s good, the rivalry is good. But it has be football-focused.
“I read some stats the other day that there’s something like double the financial disparity between ourselves and Celtic than there is between Celtic and PSG, so for us to take a point the other night and even be competing with them in the final is fantastic for us.
“The improvement has been immense, and we’ll look to continue that.”