Matt O'Riley resisted the chance to have a go at the officials after tonight's Champions League loss to Lazio.
Celtic lost a last-minute goal as the Italians dramatically ran out 2-1 winners at Parkhead on matchday two of Group E.
The result leaves Brendan Rodgers' side rooted to the bottom of the section. Kyogo had given the Hoops the lead in the match, but Lazio pegged back in the first half through Vecino. Pedro then scored with a superb header in the dying minutes to deliver the ultimate sucker punch.
There were a couple of decisions made by the referee which angered Celtic fans, namely the apparent elbow to the facial area of Reo Hatate during the first half and then high boot on O'Riley in the second. While the Denmark Under-21 was annoyed he wasn't awarded a foul for the incident, the Englishman refused to criticise the official.
“I thought I’d had two or three which should’ve been fouls," the 22-year-old admitted. "I’m not going to say anything bad about the ref, obviously he’s a human being and he’s doing his best.
“But at the same time, when my head was in the position that it was, I’m a pretty tall guy so his foot needs to go pretty high to reach my face. I don’t know, it feels like you need to go down almost to win a foul sometimes. It is what it is.”
In the game itself, the playmaker set Kyogo up for the opening goal in the game. He threaded a superb pass-through for the Japanese forward to score his first in the competition.
O'Riley continued: “I don’t feel great, obviously. Pretty upset to be honest. The game was in our hands pretty much right up until the end, and once again it’s fine moments.
“We’ve got four games to try to put things right but it’s frustrating being in this position quite similar to last year. But I thought we played well.
“It probably is those small margins at this level. I thought that was as good as we’ve played Champions League-wise. We were solid defensively for most of the game. Conceding that late it’s not nice at all. I’m not really sure what happened for the goal, I heard someone mention something about offside but I’m sure they got it right.
“I thought the fans were amazing as usual. They kept us going right until the end. We’re really disappointed. We said before the game that these were the games we needed to win, especially when you’ve got 60,000 behind you. They’re basically the 12th man. I thought they did that.
“We put ourselves in a great position to win it and we thought we nicked it with Luis’ goal but it wasn’t to be.”
