Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain risked Elijah Just’s World Cup spot – Jens Berthel Askou

Motherwell manager Jens Berthel Askou questioned why Celtic midfielder Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain was not sent off following a challenge that he claimed risked New Zealand international Elijah Just’s World Cup place.

The former Liverpool player was booked early in Celtic’s 3-1 William Hill Premiership victory and escaped a second yellow card for bringing down Ibrahim Said on the edge of his box.

The only intervention from video assistant Kevin Clancy came at Motherwell’s expense as referee John Beaton eventually pointed to the spot and showed a red card to Emmanuel Longelo for pulling Daizen Maeda to the ground as the Celtic forward headed wide from a back-post corner.

That allowed Tomas Cvancara to put Celtic ahead in the 72nd minute before Yang Hyun-jun latched on to a long ball to net his second goal.

Yang had earlier cancelled out Just’s opener as both teams capitalised on slack play at the back to net in an entertaining encounter at Parkhead.

Askou said: “We’re obviously extremely disappointed that we didn’t get anything. But the way we invested with everything we are was tremendous.

“And you also know that when you play these venues, sometimes you need the 50-50 calls to go our way. And, once again, that was not the case.

“That was obviously the situation with Eli in the beginning. I’ve seen that turn into a red card a lot more often than the penalty given in a fight on the ball in the box.

“I don’t see anything vicious in the tackle, it’s just a little bit clumsy, but it’s still a tackle that almost wipes out Eli’s opportunity of going to the World Cup. Thank God, he was able to keep playing.

“He’s very, very sore. He looks swollen down the leg. It looks like he’s been at war.

“You have to take the cuts and the bruises and the knocks and then trust that the referees will do what they need to do to look after him. I can’t see why he wasn’t called to the monitor.

“And then there’s another incident with the same player fouling Ibi. Could have had his second yellow there, maybe should.

“And these are the things that you also sometimes need to go your way. If not, then you have to be extraordinarily good to counter that. And we were good, but not that good.”

On the penalty award, the Dane said: “There’s an opportunity for the referee to argue that there’s a holding offence. And that’s hard to argue against. I know Manny is gutted right now that he didn’t control that situation better.”

Celtic manager Martin O’Neill hailed the performance of South Korea winger Yang.

“He was sensational,” he said. “Obviously, he scored the goals but it was the work he did going backwards too. I wouldn’t know what sort of distances he covered, but it would have been immense.

“I believe he was about to leave the football club in August, which was a wee bit strange. What he’s done in my two spells here, I couldn’t have asked for any more.

“I don’t know what was happening before. The first time I saw him, he played wide left in a little seven-a-side game in training. He left the full-back for absolute dead, turned both ways.”