No conspiracy from Gers fans despite ref blunder, that’s the difference

There is one fundamental difference between Rangers and Celtic fans.

When we get beat, we look at the team and the manager and hold them to account rather than make wild conspiracy claims.

Now, imagine if Bobby Madden had allowed Rangers to score when there was a Celtic player lying on the ground with a head injury – he’d currently be looking for the services of a good glazer for a start.

Every fan I’ve seen on social media has criticised how passive we were, how the players didn’t engage their opponents quick enough and how the tactics that Giovanni van Bronckhorst employed simply weren’t suitable for the team that he had chosen.

This doesn’t ignore that, yet again, a Scottish referee has totally ignored what he is supposed to do and got a major decision wrong, Madden should 100% have stopped the game, immediately. It doesn’t matter if it is a foul or between two players of the same club, he had one job to do at that corner and failed, that he had an unobstructed view of the incident and put his whistle to his mouth only made it look worse.

Just a few weeks ago this is the same official who pulled back a promising Hearts attack and then gave a drop ball to Celtic because Jota pulled up with a tight hamstring and yet their support still claims that Madden has it in for them.

Van Bronckhorst was right to blame his players for not playing to the whistle, that is week one, day one, at the school of defending but it comes back to the age old problem of our referees not being good enough.

I struggle to see any scenario, because of the way that we were playing, where we would have got to half-time level but conceding so early gave both their team and their fans a lift that we simply weren’t able to cope with.