Rangers debrief: Four-and-a-half year Ibrox penalty first branded 'bizarre' after ruthless response to Celtic defeat

Comfortable victory in the end for Rangers despite rare spot-kick concession

The LED screen at Ibrox charting a historical moment in alerting to the process that led to a first league penalty awarded against Rangers utlising VAR since the system was introduced to Scottish football 15 month ago. (Photo by Paul Devlin / SNS Group)

It won’t be that folk will be telling their grandchildren they were at Ibrox on January 2, 2024, as, just after 4.20pm, a league penalty was awarded against Rangers for the first time in 75 top flight encounters, a span of games covering two weeks short of two years.

Not even as the 58th minute spot-kick was the first handed to a Premiership opponent at the Govan ground in almost four-and-a-half years. Or as a consequence of 74-league game run having engendered all manner of social media sneering over a grand conspiracy behind Rangers’ good fortune in avoiding such sanction from Scottish officialdom in the Premiership for so long. Ultimately, after everything that has surrounded this vexed issue, it could have been perceived as amusing such a call proved to have so little impact on proceedings.

However, Philippe Clement didn’t see the funny side over John Souttar being penalised for the ball striking his arm as he slid in to block a Rory McKenzie cross - referee John Beaton pointing to the spot after poring over footage on the monitor to which his colleague Andrew Dallas had directed him. Not when the incident came only a matter of days after the Ibrox club had been left incandescent over the failure of VAR operative Willie Collum to adjudge Celtic’s Alistair Johnston handling the ball in the box in his club’s derby loss at the weekend as an offence. Even if a penalty given then would have been overturned through Abdallah Sima having strayed offside in the lead-up.

“The only downside for me is that I cannot explain to my players anymore what is handball and what is not after this game if we get a penalty against like this and a goal against like this three days after what happened at Celtic Park,” said the Belgian. "I can’t give them an explanation and that’s different as a manager when you cannot give an explanation. It's not easy. Afterwards, we can laugh and it’s not a big difference, it's 3-0 or 3-1. Just for the future, it needs to be clear for everybody what is handball and what is not handball and these two situations it's a little bit bizarre."

It isn’t how Scottish football works, but the reality is that this sore point should have been a footnote as a consequence of Rangers exhibiting the ruthless streak that eluded them against Celtic. At times a treacly contest, the home side were able to hit the sweet spot thanks to Ross McCausland claiming a first league strike with a pristine finish low into the far corner after he had been sent in behind by a glorious diagonal ball from Cyriel Dessers in the 41st minute. The home side doubling their advantage just four minutes later as the interval approached when Sima chested into the air a ball forward by Connor Goldson before spinning and producing a crashing volley after it dropped out of the air.

Danny Armstrong’s confident penalty conversion approaching the hour didn’t cause any great alarm for those of a Rangers disposition because within three minutes a two-goal advantage had been restored through Todd Cantwell tucking in at the front post a driven in left-flank cross from sponsors’ man of the match Ridvan Yilmaz. Rangers thereafter could coast with Clement able to give minutes to new loan signing Fabio Silva and Nico Raskin, the Belgian making his first appearance after two months sidelined by injury.