Partick Thistle striker Ade Azeez claims there is no way he would ever dive in an attempt to fool a referee – because he is terrified of what his mum would do to him if he did.

Azeez was cautioned by referee Craig Thomson for simulation on Friday night against Celtic, despite appearing to be caught by the trailing leg of visiting goalkeeper Craig Gordon.

Azeez is adamant that there was sufficient contact to send him to the deck, and is worried that the error by the official in such a high profile game will see him labelled unfairly as a cheat.

“I know my mum back home will be tearing her hair out because she hates stuff like that when she sees it on TV,” Azeez said.

“She hates diving, so if she thought I was diving then I don’t know what would happen!

“It’s 100% not in my nature to just go down. I’ve been booked for diving before but it’s just not me, I’ve had contact and got booked for diving and now with this one you can see it on TV that I got caught. 100% I got caught.

“I saw him coming out early and with the way he was coming I thought if I knocked it past him he could only really go into me.

“I felt the contact and that’s why I went down, but I think they got in the referee’s ear after it and the ref’s just crumbled and booked me for diving.

“I just don’t want to be labelled as a diver because I’m not one. What makes it worse is they go up the other end and score and the game is dead and buried.

“It’s horrible, particularly as it would have given us a boost to drive on, and it just adds insult to injury really.

“I’m not saying that it would definitely have changed the game, but goals give everyone that little boost maybe when we didn’t have it at the time.

“Who knows? Obviously it’s not in my power and I felt like the referee made a bad decision. But listen, he’s only human, he’s not God and he’s going to make mistakes, so it is what it is.”

Despite the booking and the heavy defeat for his side, Azeez enjoyed the experience of coming up against a team like Celtic, and he hopes that thistle can use the lessons from the match to stand them in good stead for the difficult run of fixtures that lies ahead of them.

“It’s my first taste of playing against Celtic and they’re a tough team,” he said. “Everyone raves about how well they have been doing recently and you can see they are a good team, but until you are playing against them and get to see the players up close then you don’t realise how good they really are.

“I didn’t think there was too much between the teams in the first half, but then in the second half you could see the quality and their energy and work-rate coming through. They’re a top class team.

“You could see how hard they pressed, not just in ones but in pairs and even quadruples at times. They just press all together as one and that made the difference.

“I think we can all go and learn something from this game. Sometimes, even if you’re not playing at your best, then hard work and pressure can sometimes make a difference and you can go on and get a result.”

The Jags will have a hard time improving their lowly league position over the coming weeks with a trips to Tynecastle and Celtic Park looming on the horizon, but Azeez is undaunted by the prospect.

“These are the occasions that you live for,” he said. “You want to come up against the good teams like the Celtics and the Hearts, those are the ones you want to play in and hopefully I can get a taste of it in the coming weeks.”