Kris Boyd clashes with BBC Sportscene pundit over Rangers controversy v St Johnstone as footage emerges
James McFadden feels James Tavernier was lucky to not get sent off as Rangers won 1-0 against St Johnstone at McDiarmid Park on Wednesday night.
In the second half of the Scottish Premiership clash, Ali Crawford was left lying on the ground for a few minutes after a challenge by Gers captain Tavernier.
Although the right-back won the ball, he then followed through on Crawford and his studs did make contact with the lower part of the St Johnstone player’s leg.
Tavernier wasn’t punished and no foul was awarded for the incident, as you can see below.
Kris Boyd feels it lacked enough force to be a sending off but BBC Sportscene pundit McFadden has suggested that a more serious punishment than a yellow card may have been merited.
“I think it’s a yellow card. A yellow card would be for (it being) reckless, but I don’t think it’s excessive force,” said Boyd on Sky Sports Main Event on 2 March after the game, as transcribed by the Daily Record.
McFadden then said: “I think he follows through there. The more I see it, I don’t think he needs to extend his leg.”
Boyd replied, saying: “I think when you slow anything down it looks worse. Again, maybe if we get VAR the referee has a decision to make.”
Quiet game
If anything had actually happened in that second half then we probably wouldn’t have even heard anything about that challenge by Tavernier.
Yes, he did follow through on Crawford but there was absolutely no force at all in the challenge and the St Johnstone player was clearly making the most of it as he got up almost instantly once the ball was out of play.
Tavernier won the ball but couldn’t stop himself from continuing on with his challenge and Crawford did, unfortunately, get caught.
Was it a foul? It may have been. Was it a yellow card? If it was a foul then yes, it should have been a booking.
But a red card? Absolutely not.
We’ve seen some shocker of decisions in the Scottish Premiership this season but Willie Collum’s decision on that wasn’t exactly awful.
Rangers fans have seen way worse and we guess St Johnstone fans have too.
Let’s not make this out to be worse than it actually was.
In other Rangers news, Andy Walker slammed this one player for his display against St Johnstone.