Kenny Miller rages at ‘Shocking’ Rangers incident live on BBC v Dundee
Kenny Miller was left enraged by the “shocking” decision to send off Jose Cifuentes late in the first half of Rangers’ win over Dundee on Saturday 9 December.
Rangers were far from perfect in their 3-1 win at Ibrox but came away with all three points thanks to goals from Cyriel Dessers, James Tavernier and Abdallah Sima. However, they were forced to play the second half with 10 men after Cifuentes’ straight red card.
The Ecuadorian midfielder was given his marching orders for a stamp on Amadou Bakayoko deep into injury time in the first half after a VAR review and Miller was left furious by the decision.
Speaking on BBC Sportsound (9 December, 15:50) he said: “I don’t know where we are going with this. It’ll be a red card, but I don’t think it’s a red. He’s not gone in there to hurt Bakayoko.
“He’s caught him on the shin but there’s no great force, very little force if I could say that. Yes, he’s caught him halfway up the shin but I don’t know where we are going with this. I’m speechless. He’s dangled a leg in there and it’s caught him on the top of the shin.
“Big deal. It’s a booking and not a red card, but this is where we are with VAR. It’s a harsh penalty on Dundee earlier too for the holding and now you have Rangers down to 10 men, for what is a shocking decision for me.”
Big deal
Understandably, Rangers supporters and Miller will be left furious that Cifuentes was shown a red card for a tackle with such little force, but in the modern game, players aren’t able to commit those sorts of challenges without being given their marching orders.
Ultimately, it was an unnecessary and poor tackle from the midfielder that probably didn’t need to be made at that point of the game. Luckily for Cifuentes, it didn’t prove too costly in Saturday’s match as the Light Blues had enough quality to claim all three points.
But if the Ecuadorian wants to take his game to the next level in Glasgow he needs to irradicate these sorts of mistakes from his game. Since arriving at Ibrox he has flatted to deceive and this was just yet another example of that ineffectiveness.
No matter how harsh or not a call it was, Cifuentes shouldn’t even give the referee the chance to send him off. Hopefully, Rangers can continue to impress without him in the middle of the park, but they aren’t blessed with many other options.
In other Rangers news, Stephen McGinn has slammed the Light Blues for snobbery in the transfer market when discussing Lawrence Shankland