A key VAR camera gap prevented a review of a key incident in St Johnstone's 1-0 home defeat to Celtic last week. The Saints had a second-half effort ruled out after officials could not determine if the ball had crossed the byline before a header back across goal.
Referee Matthew MacDermid signalled the ball had gone out of play before Kasper Høgh made contact, awarding a goal-kick to St Johnstone. Replays later suggested Høgh kept the ball in, but the video assistant could not intervene. The ball briefly vanished from the top corner of the available camera frame between Sebastian Tounekti's cross and Høgh's header, meaning a clear and obvious error could not be established.
Sky Sports lead commentator Ian Crocker explained the technical limitation during the broadcast. "Because the ball went out of the camera frame, VAR had to stick with the on-field decision," Crocker said. Pundit Chris Sutton also noted the oddity on social media, calling the assistant's call "baffling" while praising Celtic's narrow win.
The 1-0 loss at McDiarmid Park leaves Craig Levein's side seventh in the Premiership with seven points from six matches. They have scored eight goals but conceded nine, sitting 11 points behind leaders Celtic. Their recent form shows one win, one draw and three losses in their last five outings.
The team's next chance to add points comes in a home fixture against ninth-placed Dundee United on 17 October. Before that, they will look to build on their last victory, a 2-1 win over Hibernian where J. Fowler scored twice. The complete upcoming schedule is available on our fixtures page. The squad will need to regroup quickly after a run of tight results decided by fine margins.
