The Light Blues continued their dismal away record by dropping points against Hibs.
Fuming Kris Boyd has told Philippe Clement to bin the ref excuses after Rangers threw away another two points on the road against Hibs.
After putting in an impressive performance against Celtic at Ibrox, the key word was consistency for the Belgian boss as he looked to somehow claw a route back into a Scottish Premiership title fight. It appeared that Clement would get his wish after Hamza Igamane’s double saw the Light Blues race into a 2-0 lead – and despite Martin Boyle giving Hibs a lifeline before the break Rangers appeared to be in cruise control.
However, after the restart Ianis Hagi would clash with Josh Campbell in the box with referee John Beaton pointing to the spot. The man in the middle would be backed up by Kevin Clancy in the VAR room before Martin Boyle levelled the game. In-form Igamane would give the visitors a lead once again – before Rocky Bushiri headed in an equaliser late in the blockbuster clash in the capital.
Following the full-time whistle, Clement would rage about the decision to award the Easter Road men a spot kick as he insisted that he wanted an explanation over the call. But an irked Boyd wasn’t having it, stating in the Sky Sports studio after watching the post-match debrief “Philippe Clement can go on about it all he wants – his team got back ahead and failed to see out another game of football.
“You feel as if you are just repeating yourself – Rangers away from home just hasn’t been good enough. You can look at the incidents, and listen it’s soft. It’s clever play from Josh Campbell to put his leg in there to ask the question of John Beaton. John Beaton has decided it’s a penalty kick, it’s never going to be overturned.
David Gray will think it’s a penalty, and Philippe Clement won’t. The reality is Rangers got themselves back in front and failed to see out another game of football. Philippe Clement talks about his team dropping off, he takes off Cerny – who had ran his race – but why not bring on a Rabbi Matondo?
“You bring on Connor Barron to centre midfield and you put Diomande to the right-hand side, you are automatically going to drop back. It’s four wins in the last 15 games away from home for Rangers. It’s not good enough.”
Former Celtic hero Neil Lennon cut in: “If you score three away from home, and you are Rangers or Celtic, you have got to win the game. That’s the reality of it.”
Attempting to move Boyd on, host Eilidh Barbour interjected: “They very almost did win the game…” But an unmoved Boyd went on: “But they didn’t. That’s the reality. It’s more excuses, it’s more refereeing problems but the reality is that Rangers went 3-2 up again and failed to see out a game. I’ll say it again – it’s four wins out of 15 and not all of those results can be down to a referee’s decision.”
But Lennon had sympathy for the man in the Ibrox hot seat – as he shifted the blame on the struggling Gers stars: “I am thinking about the coach, and is it really his fault today? He has picked the right team and they have started the game brilliantly.
They could have been 3-0 or 4-0 up. He has got it right. He then makes the changes and they are 3-2 up and sometimes the players have to stand up and go ‘right, it’s 3-2, let’s see this out – don’t let Hibs turn us.
“Let’s see the game out.’ They didn’t do enough to do that. Kris is right – four wins away from home isn’t good enough. They win on Thursday and they can’t build on that and that’s the inconsistency of this team.
