Rangers manager Steven Gerrard is absolutely fuming in the wake of today’s draw at home to Kilmarnock and has criticised referee Greg Aitken for failing to protect his players, as reported by The Scottish Sun.
It was certainly a physical game at Ibrox with Killie acting as spoilers in the match with their efforts to grind out a narrow victory or a draw.
That’s to be expected in the Scottish game but the 90 minutes, which ended 1-1, clearly left a bitter taste in Gerrard’s mouth.
As quoted by The Scottish Sun, the Rangers manager said:
I’m not sure how many yellow cards there were today but it could have been eight or nine. The same people which got booked were constantly fouling. They weren’t even fouls, they were wiping out my players.
We don’t feel as if we are getting enough protection at the moment. There are fouls on a football pitch which are fine. Sometimes you have to make a foul.
But there is a difference between a foul and dangerous tackles and I thought there were a lot dangerous tackles out there.
Did I speak to the ref? What’s the point? I’ll chat with this referee then there will be a different one next week – and the same thing will happen.
The Gers boss feels the odds are stacked against us right now and it is true there was little protection for players this afternoon.
That’s par for the course up here though and if he wants to win major honours at the club, he needs to devise tactics and a gameplan that can counteract the bullying, physical play of the opposition.
Unfortunately his comments will probably not be taken seriously since it is in the wake of a poor result so hopefully he can bring up these issues the next time we get three points on the board.