Under Steven Gerrard, Rangers consistently made it hard for themselves, usually due to the misadventure of Alfredo Morelos it has to be said though.
This season, various members of the Rangers squad can feel that they have been harshly treated by a string of officials apparently out to get them.
Almost from the first hurdle, Rangers seemed to have bigger barriers to overcome with Jefte inexplicably sent off against Dynamo Kyiv.
They weren’t exactly homers against Athletic Club either with Robin Propper seeing red after 13 minutes for a tackle that was outside of the box with help on its way.
Maybe, Jose Mourinho was right about the uphill battle that Rangers were going to face due to the luck of the draw.
Rangers were warned it wasn’t going to be easy against Athletic Club
To make matters worse, an incredibly soft penalty was then awarded after an Athletic goal was ruled out with the VAR team seemingly searching for something to give the visitors – only for Liam Kelly to defy the odds.
After seeing his side beaten at Ibrox, the Special One was magnanimous in defeat, however, he did have a word of warning for Rangers when asked what their chances of progress would be against a team his Fenerbahce side had already faced:
“In my opinion, I want to be respectful you know,” Mourinho explained. “I want to respect the guys, I want to respect the coach, I want to respect the fans.
“In football, anything is possible. But, I played against Bilbao in the league phase, and Bilbao is a stronger team.
“And the final is in Bilbao. The road to Bilbao.
“I don’t know what happened today with Roma, I just know that after 10 minutes, Roma were playing with 10 men.
“So, honestly, I think if Rangers do it against Bilbao, it would be phenomenal because it’s going to be very hard.”
Not the first time Rangers have fallen foul of officials this season
It is a bit of a coincidence that both Roma and Rangers have had players sent off as early as they did against the team set to host the final.
Even against Fenerbahce, Rangers had players booked for what can only be described as dubious challenges, or dives, to give them their proper name.
The step up from domestic football to continental isn’t an easy one, but referees do tend to be of a better quality.
The reality is that Mourinho has tried to do Rangers a favour by the looks of it, by putting more pressure on those in charge to be as neutral as possible.
Istvan Kovacs looked to have got the big call of the evening right when he issued Propper only a yellow card and the grey area of what is and what isn’t a ‘goal scoring opportunity’ certainly wasn’t big enough for VAR to get involved.
That they sent Kovacs to the monitor to look at a deliberate handball for Dujon Sterling was even worse.
Or, maybe they were told to intervene…
