Official Rangers partner blasts ‘truly dreadful’ James Tavernier in win at Livingston
James Tavernier’s miss with his first penalty for Rangers at Livingston was slammed as “truly dreadful” by Heart & Hand podcast.
The official Rangers partner reacted via Twitter on 12 November after the Light Blues captain sent a 23rd-minute kick wide of the post after Ross McCausland had been brought down by Shamal George for a contentious foul.
With the scores goalless at the time Tavernier stepped up and missed the target, although Philippe Clement’s men did take the lead within minutes via Cyriel Dessers and the skipper converted a second penalty after the break.
After the miss Heart & Hand wrote “FFS Tav”, then followed up with, “That was a truly dreadful penalty in all honesty.”
Tavernier also missed one and scored one from the spot in the 2-1 league victory against Hearts on 29 October.
Scrappy
On the infamous Livi playing surface at the Tony Macaroni Arena it is perhaps no surprise but it was scruffy affair in West Lothian.
Rangers appeared to be easily superior for most of the afternoon but their dominance didn’t show in the scoreline through a combination of VAR decision-making and poor finishing.
With Danilo rested for Dessers up front the cutting edge in attack was somewhat lacking throughout a dominant first half, even though he did break the deadlock and should take some confidence from it.
McCausland also looked to have scored a nice goal which would have been his first for the club but it was ruled out for a soft foul by Abdallah Sima in the build-up, while an earlier Connor Goldson strike also disallowed on the grounds that Dessers was offside when he attempted to get a touch and distracted George.
Clement will have been satisfied with the day’s work because he was able to continue his 100% record in the SPFL without breaking much of a sweat, and got minutes for plenty of his squad.
Rangers go into the international break with their momentum in tact and can continue to look ahead, so while it wasn’t an especially enjoyable game it was job done for the Light Blues.
In other Rangers news, Tom English waded into a dispute sparked by Gers supporters to slam “populist nonsense”.