Stephen Craigan offers verdict on incident live on BBC in Rangers showdown v Motherwell
Stephen Craigan has offered his verdict on a controversial penalty call during Rangers’ win over Motherwell, admitting Ridvan Yilmaz bundled into Brodie Spencer.
Philippe Clement extended his unbeaten run as Rangers boss with an impressive 2-0 win at Fir Park on Sunday 24 December in difficult conditions thanks to first-half strikes from Kieran Dowell and Todd Cantwell.
The win moves the Gers within two points of Celtic with a game in hand, but it was without moments of concern as VAR was called into action after Yilmaz collided with Spencer inside the penalty area and Craigan admitted it could have gone either way.
Speaking on BBC Sportsound (24 December, 13:30) he said: “Well, it’ll be interesting to see how it looks in VAR, we don’t have a second look at it. Did Brodie Spencer put his foot in front of the defender to try and initiate contact?
“But if there’s nothing there he can put his leg where he wants, if the defender then bundles into the back of him, it’s a foul. I don’t know, we can’t see it, we cannot guess.”
Got away with one
On first viewing, it looked as though Spencer made an effort to get into a position where Yilmaz would have had to bring him down to get the ball. It was the Motherwell striker who initiated the contact so it is reasonable to not award a penalty.
But as Craigan suggested live on air, Yilmaz did almost bundle into the back of Spencer rather clumsily and that gave the referee a decision to make. Had the Turkish international stood his ground, he wouldn’t have even allowed the possibility of a penalty.
It wasn’t a bad performance from the 22-year-old who impressed more out of possession than he did with the ball, but he has to make sure to concentrate in those crucial moments as he could have well cost his team at an important moment.
Had that decision gone against Rangers, it would have been incredibly, incredibly harsh, but it was a naive piece of defending to give the referee a decision to make. Hopefully, Yilmaz takes that as a warning.
In other Rangers news, one former FA official has accused Ross McCausland of cheating in a clash earlier this season