Rangers star Todd Cantwell harassed after Celtic defeat as pundit slams social media footage
Tam McManus branded the person who followed Todd Cantwell in an airport Monday a “dobber” as he slammed harassment of the Rangers star.
The BBC pundit reacted on Twitter (4 September) after footage emerged of the Gers midfielder being mocked the day after defeat in the Old Firm derby to Celtic.
McManus was not impressed by “harassing a guy at an airport” as he dismissed the video online.
Rangers went down 1-0 at Ibrox to a Kyogo Furuhashi in the latest Old Firm disappointment under Michael Beale, in a game that saw a Kemar Roofe strike controversially ruled out after a VAR review.
Flat
Cantwell certainly didn’t have one of his better games at the weekend since his arrival from Norwich in January, and has become a polarising figure, but hassling him in public isn’t really needed.
His own social media use and his ongoing rivalry with Chris Sutton probably makes people think he’s fair game, and it could have been worse in this instance.
But it was only a few months ago that it was far worse when referee Anthony Taylor was being aggressively confronted by furious Roma fans in an airport after the Europa League final [Sky News, 2 June], and while there’s a sizeable gap between the two instances it doesn’t take much to escalate.
It’s a fine line between a regular interaction and some sort of incident, while any reaction from a player in that situation causes them far more trouble than it does to the person on the other end of it.
Cantwell and his teammates have come away from another Old Firm derby without anything to show for it, and have a combination of themselves and the officials to blame.
It doesn’t need to be an excuse to point to the fortune Celtic got for the disallowed Roofe goal because it was the sort of call that would infuriate most sets of fans, but Rangers should have been better throughout the rest of the game to not let it matter.
As it is Beale is now under mounting pressure after two SPFL defeats already and a resounding failure to reach the Champions League group stage.
In other Rangers news, confirmed transfer news has seen a former Ibrox star and his agent slammed by a journalist.