RYAN CHRISTIE should be cleared of the charges brought against him for his clash with Alfredo Morelos in the Old Firm match, according to John Hughes.

Hughes contends that incidents such as the one between the Celtic attacker and the Rangers striker were commonplace in his day, saying that the apparent grab from Christie at his opponent can hardly be compared to Vinnie Jones’s famous clash with Paul Gascoigne.

“I know Ryan personally and I hope he gets cleared, 100 per cent,” Hughes said. “For Scottish football. We want to see our best players on the pitch.

“If Ryan is getting pulled up then there’s a precedent set. When I played, pulling a rival’s hair or standing on their toes was all part and parcel of the game.

“The game is changing right now and sometimes for the better because we’ll become better football teams for it as you can pass the ball without getting clattered.

“But there’s nothing in what Ryan done. Nothing in it whatsoever and I hope for Ryan’s sake, Celtic’s sake and the game’s sake that he gets cleared.

“It wasn’t quite Vinnie Jones - he had a bit of venom in him!”

Hughes has backed Christie to come back stronger from his penalty miss in the defeat to Rangers, and the groin surgery that followed the match.

“Ryan bounced back from his broken jaw and red card at Livingston where he was battered on Twitter,” he said. “He’s a resilient boy, that’s why he’s at Celtic.

“I kept saying to John Collins, when he was in at Celtic with Ronny Deila, that we had a star in Ryan [at Inverness].

“You could see it on the training pitch. He played with such enthusiasm and when you see that it draws you to him.

“I remember we were losing 4-0 to Celtic at Parkhead and we brought Ryan on and he scored one and we ended up losing 4-2.

“After the game I said to Ronny Deila ‘surely you can see his talent’ and on the Monday they came in with a bid and we never stepped in his way because he’s a Celtic boy.”