I’m not sure this should be so much talking points as shouting points. There was plenty to be frustrated about yesterday.
In terms of performance from the team, we let ourselves down in many ways, but the red card was the biggest factor by far. What was looking like it could be a good game of football between two confident sides was changed by that decision.
And that decision was wrong.
Anyone who knows me will know that I rarely criticise referees heavily. I allow for mistakes, as I would in a player. I’m of the opinion that it’s a horrible job which I’ll never do, so I have little right to judge. Yesterday, though, I witnessed a performance riddled with mistakes and inconsistency and it deserves criticism as a minimum.
On Friday, Celtic were lucky to get away with a late decision which should have led to a penalty. I spoke to some about this, and felt that I could at least understand why the referee got that wrong. If the Thistle player hadn’t thrown himself as he did, there was no reason for the referee to doubt himself and make the wrong call. Yesterday, I can’t come up with any sort of argument for a number of the decisions.
The red card was the main incident of the match. After watching the replay a few times, I’m completely stumped. Jack does little to justify a straight red card, and if his actions were deemed to be aggressive enough for that, at least 3 or 4 other players should have went too. Stokes had done far worse early in the game to Tavernier, and was the more aggressive of the two when squaring up to Jack, yet only got a yellow card for the first incident and nothing for the second one.
McGeouch, who was booked along with Dorrans when Jack was sent off, must have committed at least 3 bookable fouls after that to no punishment. Towards the end of the game, when it would have made little difference to the outcome, he was the one who fouled Pena yet McGregor was booked as he was close enough to take the blame.
MORE RANGERS STORIES
Morelos had a foul given against him when he had McGregor’s arm around his neck. In fact, any time Morelos went near one of their defenders, he was deemed to be fouling them. Strikers can often be on the harsh end of those decisions, but many yesterday were blatantly wrong.
I understand it sounds like sour grapes, but I can’t find the justification to give the referee any sort of understanding this time around. He was horrendous in terms of decision making. The more cynical and emotion driven will see it as biased. I’ll never get on board with that sort of conclusion, but he certainly gave Hibs far more of a boost than we got from his performance.
On the match itself, there were a few points to discuss. The formation of Hibs was one which gave us problems. By leaving two players up front with a bit of pace, they got the equaliser on the counter attack. As we push our full-backs up the pitch, we can leave defenders a little exposed, and they benefitted from it. The three central midfielders had spells where they dominated our partnership as well. We may see a few teams try this approach against us if we stick with the 4-4-2 shape we currently use.
Our central defenders had a poor day. Alves made a few mistakes, and Cardoso looked like he was struggling. They were doing fine in the first 20 minutes, though, so maybe if the red card wasn’t given they’d have played their way back to that level.
As discussed in the Man of the Match report, Alfredo Morelos looks like a good prospect. I wasn’t sure he’d start the game, but he justified his inclusion with more than just the goal. Hopefully, there’s even more to come from him.
Caixinha will be criticised for his second half approach. He decided to go for a result rather than keep it tight. The second goal we conceded changed his thinking, as you could see Rossiter was warming up to come on and take the place Jack had been playing. If we had kept it to 1-1 going into halftime, I believe the changes would have been different.
We tried to leave the spare man as Hanlon, rarely closing him down on the ball, but it meant that when we won it back, we had few options. A lot of long balls from the back were the only way we could get out, and we struggled to hold it up in forward areas. Caixinha took a risk which didn’t pay off. Whilst I believe it was worth going for, many will feel it was the wrong approach. I’m not sure there was much we could have done to get a result either way.
We’ll appeal the Jack red card, and if it’s overturned it will show the sort of mess the referee made of the game. As a club, we rarely make much noise about such things, which angers a lot of fans, but it’s never something that is very conducive. Referees will make mistakes regardless. If you’re of the opinion Beaton was biased yesterday, I can see why you’d want more from the club, but that’s a huge accusation to make with no solid way of proving it was true.
The team will be angry, the club frustrated. If we can channel that into some sort of positive reaction in upcoming games, that’s the best we can take from yesterday.
Anything you’d like to add? Tweet us @rangersnewsuk and we’ll be happy to share!