Nick Montgomery gains a Celtic witness to heighten penalty ire as he claims Parkhead star made confession to Hibs

Nick Montgomery slammed VAR for sinking any chance of a Hibs fight back at Parkhead.

The Easter Road gaffer was raging at the decision to award Celtic a penalty for the third goal after Alistair Johnston was caught by Lewis Stevenson. Montgomery reckons the video ref was swayed by the crowd – and it killed his side’s hopes. He said: “The player who actually went down didn’t even think it was a penalty. He didn’t think he got touched. He said that to the boys afterwards.

“He’s not going to get the ball, it hasn’t affected where the ball is going to go, he is already falling down and Lewis Stevenson comes down the side of him not through the back of him. If he had gone through the back of him, no problem, give a penalty. But, yeah, when you are talking about a crowd like this in big places when they all shout . . . Maybe I will get the Hibs fans to shout every time somebody goes down.

“Maybe we will get a penalty because we haven’t had one yet. But that wasn’t the reason we lost the game. But 3-0 down at Celtic to two soft goals and a penalty, not taking our chances, it’s an uphill task.”

Montgomery reckons his side were in the fight despite eventually going down 4-1. He said: “I’m proud of the effort and the way we played, because you have to be brave and we were brave. There were some really good passages of play that, on another day, we score another couple of goals.

“We probably didn’t deserve anything from the game because of the manner of the goals we gave away in the first half. But the boys carried in, we scored a goal, Ellie Youan hit the post as well.

“So I’m proud of the boys’ effort, disappointed in the result, disappointed in the first two goals we conceded. The boys are disappointed as well, so I don’t need to