Keith Hackett reacts to Rangers incident vs Motherwell that had BBC Sportsound baffled
Rangers were denied by an officiating decision against Motherwell which left players and commentators confused.
Jack Butland‘s heroics in goal kept a clean sheet and allowed Rangers to snatch a 1-0 win to go above Motherwell in the table on Saturday afternoon.
Thelo Aasgaard scored the winner at Ibrox but only after Nico Raskin thought he’d put his side ahead, only to see the goal belatedly ruled out for an offside.
Djeidi Gassama‘s cut-back early in the second half was stroked into a virtually open goal by the Belgian midfielder, but celebrations were eventually cut short as David Dickinson indicated an issue, despite it being unclear whether the assistant had initially flagged.
Youssef Chermiti offside as Nico Raskin goal disallowed
As Raskin applied the finishing touch Youssef Chermiti had strayed beyond the last defender and found himself right next to Calum Ward.
The Portuguese striker was in the way of the keeper as he looked to get back across his line, and whether he would have kept the strike out or not it was deemed to be offside, although the Rangers players appeared unclear what the ruling was, while on BBC Radio Scotland both Kevin Thomson and Stuart McCall struggled to work it out.
As it became clear the officials were getting involved Thomson said: “It was definitely cut back so if it gets cut back you cannot be offside so I just wonder if the ball’s strayed out of the pitch, which I don’t know why the linesman… he’s a long, long way away from it. I don’t see how [he could tell].”
McCall added: “Chermiti’s saying ‘was it me that was offside?’ but as Kevin says it was cut back.”
Thomson at least seemed to have worked out what might be happening when he said: “Is it the obstruction in front of the goalkeeper when Raskin hits his shot? I don’t know if Motherwell get out quick towards the ball and one of the Rangers players, it might be Chermiti, is standing in an offside position.”
But as the final decision made to boos from the stands he reacted: “Wow”.
McCall didn’t seem to have got that far as he said: “I’d love to see the VT of that goal because it must have been a clear offside but from here it looked like a cut back.”
“I never really seen any Motherwell players protest it or even ask for it,” Thomson added:
Keith Hackett, who wants the SFA to take action over Motherwell fans’ pyro ahead of kickoff, was clear, however, as the former head of the PGMOL and ex-FIFA referee reviewed footage of the incident and ruled: “The decision to disallow the goal for offside was the correct decision.
“Chermiti was clearly in an offside position and correctly judged to be interfering with an opponent.”
Chermiti decision clear, adds to struggle at Ibrox
Replays made the decision seem fairly straight forward so the BBC pundits must have been without them to have found the call so confusing.
It was something of a surprise that Chermiti got the start ahead of Bojan Miovski since the latter has discovered some decent scoring form of late, whereas the big-money acquisition from Everton only scored a second of the season when it was too late to affect the result at Tynecastle last week.
The Portuguese started the game against Motherwell fairly well but was wayward when it came to actually threatening the goal.
And for him to have had more of an impact preventing his side from scoring rather than finding the net himself only adds to a miserable half-season in Glasgow, which could be all he gets with Rangers willing to leave Chermiti leave in January.
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