Rangers: Tam McManus slams ‘hopeless’ officials after ’embarrassingly bad’ display v Hibernian
Tom McManus has slammed “hopeless” Scottish officials after an “embarrassingly bad” display during Rangers’ Scottish Cup win over Hibernian.
The Light Blues booked their place in the Scottish Cup semi-final with an impressive 2-0 win at Easter Road on Sunday (10 March) thanks to goals from John Lundstram and Fabio Silva either side of halftime.
However, the game was riddled with controversy as Hibs lost Jordan Obita and Nathan Moriah-Welsh to red cards and conceded a first-half penalty and McManus was quick to destroy the referee for his performance.
Writing on X on Sunday (10 March) he said: “Remember the referees threatened to go on strike here after criticism from managers? It might be players & managers shortly as the officials in Scotland are hopeless.
“I mean absolutely embarrassingly bad. VAR has exposed the level of referees here.”
Have Rangers been helped by referees in their win over Hibernian?
There has been a narrative around Scottish football for a while that Rangers have been getting the better of officials’ decisions both this season and the last few years to help them overthrow Celtic in the Premiership.
The ‘penalty to Rangers’ debate has rumbled on for a while, but every decision that was made at Easter Road yesterday seemed justifiable as there was contact on Dujon Sterling for the penalty and both red cards were understandable, if slightly harsh.
However, the one thing that Rangers supporters will agree with is that the standard of referring north of the harder has been terrible this season, and Clement’s side have fallen victim to those bad decisions themselves.
Hopefully, any suggestions of a referee strike will have been brushed aside after another “hopeless” display in an important game. It seems unlikely standards will improve, but they have been nowhere near good enough.
In other Rangers news, Sir Kenny Dalglish has heaped praise on one Ibrox star who has “caught the eye” in recent weeks
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