Scott Wright red card slammed on BBC Sportscene as Rangers lose to Aberdeen to leave Michael Beale facing sack
Scott Wright’s dismissal as Rangers were beaten at Ibrox by Aberdeen was “never a red card in its life”, according to Neil McCann.
The BBC Sportscene pundit blasted the decision live on the programme on Saturday night (30 September), clear that the second booking handed out by Steven McClean were the wrong decision, and was backed up by host Steven Thompson.
Wright, who nearly left in the summer, had only come on at half-time for Ryan Jack as injuries continued to mount for the Light Blues, but was sent packing within half an hour after a pair of soft yellows added to and awful afternoon for the home fans.
McCann said (16m 21s): “To heap misery on the way the game’s going here, I’d like to point out this is never a red card in its life.”
“No, not for me,” replied Thompson.
Never rains it pours
It is yet another of the many slight mitigating factors in Beale’s faltering reign as Rangers boss, and it is certainly true that when times are tough a team sometimes needs some luck but he got none here.
But he arguably did with Abdallah Sima’s opener against Livingston in midweek, to kick off a 4-0 result that looked like it was might be turning a corner.
So for Rangers to follow that cup win up by delivering a performance that instead exhibited all the worst elements of their form this season would likely have had boos raining down at the the final whistle even if they had scraped a victory.
Two soft yellows for Wright were the last thing the manager needed when he is losing players to injury at an alarming rate, but it is fair to ask whether it would have made a difference to the result.
How Beale comes out of the current storm with his job in tact only John Bennett and his board will know if they are minded to allow it.
This isn’t how it was supposed to be at Ibrox this season, with the manager entrusted to oversee a major revamp of the squad which was expected to herald a new dawn and a meaningful assault on the title.
So far it has been more of the same, and arguably even worse, as new signings have failed to settle and the obligatory injury crisis has wiped out most of what has been good.
Plenty of fans made their mind up about Beale weeks ago, at least, and with every poor performance, and certainly with every bad result, there will be more and more reaching the same conclusion.
In other Rangers news, a pundit has mocked Beale over getting the sack with a joke about Giovanni van Bronckhorst returning a controversial favour.