Rangers news as Stuart Dougal has no issues with Aberdeen goal after VAR controversy
Former Scottish football referee Stuart Dougal has praised Nick Walsh and his assistants for allowing Bojan Miovski’s goal, Aberdeen’s second, against Rangers on Sunday, as told on BBC Scotland’s The VARdict.
It was a borderline decision that went in favour of Miovski in real time, as he evaded Borna Barisic with the Croatian’s trailing foot said to be playing him onside.
The goal put Aberdeen firmly in control of the Scottish Premiership contest as they recorded their first win over Rangers at Pittodrie since 2016. Barry Robson’s side are now on a run of seven consecutive league wins.
Dougal was confident that the right call was made for Aberdeen’s second goal of the game, from the perspective of the officials.
“I would say that the referees are calling the shots and calling the decisions correctly,” he said.
“This is an interesting one. I can take you back and if we didn’t have VAR, that goal would be allowed to stand because the attacker has to get the benefit. If it’s so close that the assistant can’t determine whether the player is offside or not, the attacker gets the benefit.
“We’ve got VAR, we bring in the lines and as we’ve mentioned before, the lines are calibrated before the game to make sure it’s the best angle possible given we don’t have cameras every 10 yards up and down the touchline and the lines, as you rightly say there, are so close.
“But, it indicates it’s onside so well done the assistant referee for keeping the flag down, great that we’ve got VAR that allows a perfectly good goal to stand, so I’m happy.”
Soft centre, similar problems
For Aberdeen and Robson, the current run of seven straight wins has also brought six clean sheets. Their former player has revitalised the team into a different animal, with their five-point gap over Hearts in third place underlining the progress made recently.
Meanwhile, Michael Beale’s side have lost 10 goals across their last seven outings in what is a stark contrast.
For the second goal on Sunday, Rangers would have got out of jail if Miovski had strayed offside. Either way, the defensive effort was terrible in this passage of play.
It is just a continuation of what has happened over and over in recent games, particularly against St Mirren at Ibrox last week.
On that occasion, the manager bemoaned the “sloppy, horror show” from his team at the back, in what is an obvious, ominous worry ahead of the must-win Scottish Cup semi-final with Celtic at Hampden on Sunday.
In other Rangers news, Hugh Keevins believes Michael Beale can read the room over his job safety at Ibrox after what he told Ally McCoist.