Celtic boss Brendan Rodgers has admitted he feels for his Rangers counterpart after his side’s defeat to Motherwell in the League Cup after some poor officiating during the game.

Rangers were knocked out of the competition on Sunday and will not join arch rivals Celtic in the final. But the Glasgow side might feel hard done by, especially when manager Pedro Caixinha was sent to the stands for his reaction following a challenge on defender Fabio Cardoso, who suffered a broken nose.

“There was a couple of decisions yesterday that would’ve worried me. I thought the authority from the officials in the game was poor,” said Rodgers talking about the clash.

“You play in that level of game, I could see why Pedro was probably annoyed.”

“There was a couple of incidents there that went unpunished. You maybe would’ve got away with that in the ’80s, but certainly not now. It certainly shouldn’t have been the case.”

“But, you’ve got to give credit. The boy (Louis) Moult scores his goals. First one, read it well in the box and his second was a brilliant finish.”

“It’ll be a great final and obviously delighted for Motherwell to get through because they’ve started the season very well.”

Rodgers did however reveal that he received an apology from the linesman who officiated the Hoops’ semi-final game against Hibernian. Defender Dedryck Boyata was judged to have committed a foul in the area by the linesman which resulted in a penalty, but the linesman later apologised when reviewing the challenge.

“Over the two games, I’d be disappointed,” Rodgers said when about his thoughts on officiating in Scotland.

“The only thing I would say is that the young linesman came in after the game and apologised. So, that takes courage to do that. He was looking for me but I was at my press conference so I didn’t get the chance to speak to him but he came in to apologise and said to Dedryck Boyata that he made a mistake. So, that takes a lot for someone to do that. Thankfully, it didn’t cost us.”
[Quotes via BBC Sport]