LEAKED! Motherwell Dressing Room Outrage to Celtic’ late controversial penalty EXPOSED amid pure Robbery by John Beaton & VAR to favour Hoops at Fir Park

Andy Halliday has opened up on the frustration inside the Motherwell F.C. dressing room following the controversial late penalty that handed Celtic victory at Fir Park.

Kelechi Iheanacho converted from the penalty spot deep into stoppage time to keep Celtic within touching distance of Heart of Midlothian F.C. ahead of Saturday’s showdown between the clubs, but the award itself completely dominated the post-match fallout.

Referee John Beaton originally waved play on before being advised by VAR to take another look at the incident. After a quick review at the pitchside monitor, the official pointed to the spot for a handball against Sam Nicholson — a decision that left many Motherwell players stunned.

Although Andy Halliday was not part of the matchday squad, the midfielder discussed the incident during a vlog for Open Goal and explained the concerns being voiced by teammates inside the dressing room afterwards.

He said: “We’ve not properly seen it back yet, so I’m not going to give my opinion until I do. I’m only going to tell you what has basically been said.

“So, basically the VAR… I think they’ve seen it as a handball. Obviously, the boys are not happy because they feel like Sam’s went to jump, Trusty’s jumped from underneath him and lifted his hand towards the ball.

“But Sam says he doesn’t even think it hits his hand, it hits his head. But as I said, we’ve not seen it back so we can’t give our opinion.”

Despite the controversy surrounding the winning goal, Andy Halliday praised the overall standard of the match and described the contest as a brilliant advert for Scottish football.

He added: “First and foremost, it just shows you you don’t need to go all the way across Europe to watch proper football because that was a brilliant game.

“I genuinely thought it was an unbelievable game. I thought it went both ways. I thought at the end, I thought a draw probably would have been a fair result. We said at the time, I actually felt that there was a winner in it, and I thought it was going to be us just because of a couple of scenarios.”