Rangers haven’t helped themselves this season by how they have played in the final third and the mistakes that they have made at the back.
Philippe Clement has cut a frustrated figure at times throughout the season, clearly perplexed at what his squad is doing, and wondering what else he can do as manager to put things right.
What also hasn’t helped him, is some of the officiating in Rangers games with Mohamed Diomande’s successful red card appeal raising the sinister question of preferential treatment for one club once again.
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Rangers red card farce raises familiar discipline question
Clement was incredulous after the 3-1 win over Dundee Utd, but saw Nick Walsh’s decision to send off Diomande take the shine off what had been a dominant second half display against one of the Scottish Premiership’s form teams.
”I’ve saw it back now because I knew this question was coming,” Clement told Sky Sports.
”I totally don’t understand. We’re going to appeal it also as a club.
”The VAR was clearly also in that opinion otherwise they don’t ask the referee to come to the screen.
”OK, my opinion is clearly it’s totally not a red card.
”If that’s a red card then every game there will be three, four, five red cards and I think my player gets attacked in that moment.
”He gets pushed and he has small reaction with his hand without even touching the opponent.
”They can have both maximum yellow but giving a red card for that, yeah, that’s incredible.”
There is one club that certainly wouldn’t get a red card for the Diomande incident, and probably, not even a yellow.
The league’s disciplinary list makes for interesting reading in what is a physical environment and a difficult one for the men in the middle.
Scottish Premiership discipline statistics
Rangers not getting a penalty in the league so far remains an incredible statistic given their dominance in most games, however, it isn’t the biggest outlier.
Celtic have received just 24 yellow cards all season, next on the list? Hibs, with 37, but they have also seen four red cards.
So, in terms of disciplinary points, Dundee are the closest team to Celtic having had 44 yellows and one red, nearly double that of the current league leaders.
Dundee, however, have a similar number of fouls per game, and yet they have 20 extra yellow cards, why are their players more likely to get booked than Celtic’s despite committing a similar number of fouls?
Rangers have seen exactly double the number of cards of Celtic from referees with 48 in total, 46 yellow and two red.
| Club | Yellow | Red | Fouls per game |
| Celtic | 24 | 0 | 9.4 |
| Dundee | 44 | 1 | 9.8 |
| Ross County | 42 | 2 | 10.4 |
| Hibernian | 37 | 4 | 10.9 |
| Hearts | 52 | 1 | 11 |
| Rangers | 46 | 2 | 10.8 |
Celtic are averaging 73% possession to Rangers 64% against other teams, which doesn’t equate to such a big difference in terms of cards.
For fouls, Celtic are committing 9.4 per game and Rangers 10.8, again, such a small difference shouldn’t result in the discrepancy that currently exists.
Unfortunately, whilst Rangers players are being sent off, with the referee seeing the replay over 20 times, and still deciding that a red card for being pushed twice by an opponent is the right call, things will never change.
