Neil McCann reacts to ‘Huge’ Rangers mistakes v Celtic live on BBC Sportscene
Neil McCann highlighted the key flaw in Rangers‘ performance against Celtic on Saturday with the conclusion that Michael Beale’s team did not do enough to merit the victory, as the gap at the top of the Scottish Premiership was increased to 12 points.
Realistically, any notion of a title race was put to bed despite seven games of the season remaining. All that Rangers can do now is to sharpen up ahead of the massive Scottish Cup semi-final at the end of this month which was to lead to retaining the trophy. In terms of the league, it’s a matter of pride as well as putting down a marker in the final Old Firm clash of the campaign, at Ibrox next month.
Whilst there were positives for Rangers to take from Saturday’s game, ultimately it was another loss in a key game that required a win. As intimated by former Ibrox winger McCann, for as long as ridiculous individual errors continue then there can be no expectation to come out on top.
When asked on BBC Scotland’s Sportscene on Saturday (8 April) if Rangers did enough to deserve a victory, McCann stated: “I don’t think to win the game. Maybe to leave with a point.
“I think if you make huge mistakes like that against Celtic, you’re bound to be punished and they were.
“I don’t think they can complain too much.”
The biggest frustration from a Rangers perspective is obviously the terrible unforced errors made by Ben Davies and John Souttar for Celtic’s second and third goals.
If the defensive duo takes responsibility in those moments, it’s a different game. That feeling is increased over the hasty, controversial decision of Kevin Clancy to rule out what should have been an opener for Alfredo Morelos.
However, the bottom line is that Rangers didn’t do what was required in both boxes and Celtic did. Their key men in attack, Kyogo and Jota, took advantage when the opportunities were presented compared to Morelos, Ryan Kent and Malik Tillman who were mostly underwhelming.
Neil McCann was spot on to say that Rangers can’t have too many complaints on the balance of how the game unfolded. Those awful errors left an uphill battle to restore anything from the fixture, with Borna Barisic unable to rescue a point from his free kick effort in the last action of the game.
As the dust settles, it’s a case of more disappointment and regret for Rangers in the Old Firm contest.
In other Rangers news, one of the club’s official partners was fuming on Twitter after the defeat to Celtic.