Lennon and McFadden disagree on Rangers controversy v Hibs – ‘Absolutely raging’
Neil Lennon and James McFadden gave their reaction to the penalty awarded against Rangers in the game with Hibernian with the latter claiming “you would be raging” if it wasn’t given for your team.
Rangers dropped another two points at Easter Road on Sunday with Hibernian coming from behind twice to earn a point in the 3-3 draw.
Hamza Igamane was on fire for the visitors but his hat-trick wasn’t enough to secure victory for the Gers with much of their undoing coming as a result of Ianis Hagi being penalised for fouling Josh Campbell, with ex-Celtic manager Lennon giving his reaction to the flashpoint after Philippe Clement had said it should not have been awarded.
Speaking live on Sky Sports Football after the game (5 January), Lennon said: “I understand why he thinks it shouldn’t be a penalty. My initial reaction when I saw it live is, I don’t think that’s a penalty. I thought Hagi gets his body across. There is contact. He does nudge him in the back a little bit and a nudge in the back is enough to make the referee decide it’s a penalty.”
McFadden disagreed and exclaimed: “See if that happened for your team and you weren’t awarded a penalty there, you’d be absolutely raging. You would be raging and that would be a bigger question for me. If a penalty wasn’t awarded there, you’d be looking and saying, why is it not awarded?”
Rangers cannot blame penalty decision for Hibernian result
Quite frankly, you’ll struggle to find many people who disagree with the award of the penalty given the reckless challenge from Hagi in an attempt to win the ball from behind.
It was a penalty but that wasn’t the reason why Rangers dropped points, at least not entirely.
A complete lack of game management was on show from the visitors and as soon as Hibernian got one back, the comeback looked inevitable as the Gers just couldn’t handle the pressure of maintaining their lead.
The negatives from the game may not end with the result either with Mohamed Diomande potentially facing retrospective action after an incident at full-time.
Misery just seems to keep coming at Ibrox this season and whether Clement is the man to stop the rot remains a question worth asking but it certainly feels like their win against Celtic has bought him more time at the club.
In other Rangers news, Celtic sent a dig to the Gers after the game.
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