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Dodgy refs and conspiracy nonsense, only one team benefiting

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After another incident at the weekend that had the hordes in uproar, Rangers fans are once again finding themselves explaining the laws of the game to fans of various clubs.

The irony that Celtic’s support totally ignored a foul by one their own players in the lead up to their opener and a penalty decision that could easily have gone against them with the score at 1-0 isn’t lost, despite Joe Aribo skating very close to a red card against Hearts – at least we can admit when we have been lucky.

The narrative, actually, let’s call it what it is, conspiracy theory, that we benefit from more refereeing decisions than anyone else is nonsense and has been proven on more than one occasion, most recently by an excellent article from Chris Cherry at This is Ibrox.

Well known Scottish football forum, Pie and Bovril, has for some time, published random weekly tables that suggest one thing, but in reality, explain precious little and are often best ignored – the latest being the number of fouls given away by each club. But why let the facts get in the way of a good conspiracy though eh?

Now, this is perfect fodder for those of a green and white persuasion but, a deeper look into the numbers explain an awful lot more than a pointless table – even on a basic level, the three teams at the bottom of this one, are the teams at the top end of the Premiership table, if you are winning games you are usually dominating possession and not committing fouls.

As one Rangers fan pointed out though, for all that Celtic are aggressive in winning back the ball and giving free-kicks away, more often than not, they avoid punishment, even though the officials are all out to get them.

To put this into perspective, the Rangers v Hearts game had one less booking – four for each team – than Celtic have received all season, not that they will have it any other way of course – always cheated, never defeated after all.

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