Michael Stewart in Celtic offside confession but pundit has eyes fixed on star who got 'bullied'

Stewart reckons the defensive pairing of Moritz Jenz and Stephen Welsh couldn't handle St Mirren's "physicality" up front.

Michael Stewart reckons Celtic were "bullied" by Jonah Ayunga and Curtis Main in St Mirren's 2-0 win in Paisley. But the pundit also believes Saints' second goal should not have stood - since the Saints striker was marginally offside.

Ange Postecoglou 's team fell to a shock defeat on the road and it was their first Premiership loss since they went down to Livingston almost exactly a year ago. That 364-day undefeated streak came to a crashing halt with Mark O'Hara opening the scoring in the first half before Ayunga popped up after the break to seal a famous Saints win.

It was that second goal that went under the microscope on BBC Sportscene and with the benefit of replays and those all-important dividing lines Stewart, reckons Ayunga was marginally offside when he popped up to nod home after Curtis Main headed across goal. But he saved the bulk of his criticism for Celtic duo Moritz Jenz and Stephen Welsh - who he feels were "bullied" by the Paisley strike duo throughout.

He said: "Technically I think it is offside. There's a bit of pushing and shoving from both players, Stephen Welsh has got a good firm hold of Ayunga's jersey, and he probably does shove him a little bit. It's weak (from Welsh) though and I think this goal is indicative of the performance as a whole.

"You see Curtis Main's desire, he gets above and bullies Jenz and it's the same at the back post. You can see with the line that Ayunga's offside but it's very tight for the linesman to be able to see that definitively.

"If it was VAR, yes it probably would be chopped off. But I think that moment there in the six-yard box was pretty indicative of what happened most of the afternoon. Ayunga and Main up top caused chaos against Jenz and Welsh, they were never really able to handle the physicality of them."

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