Rodgers fights Griffiths' corner over 'strange' booking

Brendan Rodgers will seek an explanation for the strange'' booking Celtic striker Leigh Griffiths incurred during the 2-0 Champions League qualifying win over Linfield.

The Hoops player had a missile thrown at him in the first half at Windsor Park after his corner had led to Scott Sinclair's opener, which was soon followed by a terrific Tom Rogic strike.

In the second half of the first leg of this second-round qualifier, Griffiths was booked by Spanish referee Alejandro Hernandez for presumably taking his time at a corner when objects again came his way, with photographs demonstrating that he showed at least one bottle to the official.

The Scotland striker was soon replaced by Moussa Dembele, with Jonny Hayes replacing James Forrest to make his debut, and the former Aberdeen winger also had missiles launched at him when he took over corner-kick duties.

There was more bad feeling at the end of the game when Griffiths returned to the pitch to tie a Hoops scarf to a goal post, a gesture he had previously carried out after a win over Rangers at Ibrox.

We'll just have a look at it and get the thoughts on the officials on why it happened,'' said Rodgers.

You sometimes get these scenes throughout the country, not just here but other places as well.

Obviously it's not what you wanted to see. The game was played in good spirit, in the main.

So it's not ideally what you would like to see. I thought it was strange him getting booked for it.

I took him off because he was booked and sometimes you never know how these games go.

We hopefully will have five more games in the qualifying competition so we didn't want to risk anything if he was getting frustrated. It was also the idea to give one or two some game time.

But like I say the talk is more really on the football for us. The scoreline was okay, it could have been better but it gives us the advantage for the second leg.''

Linfield manager David Healy claimed not to have seen any object being thrown and backed the home fans.

The former Rangers striker said: Linfield as a club have made giant strides over the years to try to cut that shouting and abuse out but you get that in Old Firm games, you get that in Manchester derbies, you are always going to get a ferocious red-hot atmosphere.

Our fans back us, back the players, and back me through thick and thin and hopefully they continue to do that throughout the season.''

However, a club statement issued after the game promised to punish any supporters identified as being involved.

The statement said: The club will be reviewing our own footage and investigating an incident that took place during the match where a number of objects were thrown on to the pitch. We are obviously very disappointed that a small number of people chose not to respect the club's wishes.

Linfield FC strongly condemns these actions and will be taking all necessary steps to identify any individual who was engaged in this activity. The club takes the safety of fans, players and officials extremely seriously and there will be serious and lasting consequences for anyone involved.'