The major talking point after our 2-2 draw with Hibernian is an obvious one, at 2-1 up and heading for three points, the game was turned on it’s head by Willie Collum seeing something that simply wasn’t there.
This isn’t just my opinion, the statistics back up that Rangers were in total control, Hibs having only created one chance through a defensive mistake until the whistler got involved.
The Sky Sports panel featuring a current Hibs player in Aiden McGeady, Celtic “minded” James McFadden and even Andy Walker on co-commentary all felt that a yellow would have been the right call.
On Twitter, media partner Heart and Hand were furious with the call and 100% correct in their assessment of the result. That other Hibs journalists and pundits were also bemused at the decision tells it’s own story.
The fact is without the ref we don’t drop points there.
Absolutely scunnered, blatantly cheated.
— Heart & Hand Podcast (@ibroxrocks) August 20, 2022
That Lundstram decision is remarkable, actually. He seemed genuinely stunned by the red coming out. Gets more bewildering on every view.
— Jonathon Moar (@JonathonMoar) August 20, 2022
That’s totally cynical from Lundstram but struggling to see why it would be a red.
— Jonny McFarlane (@jonnyrmcfarlane) August 20, 2022
Colum having an absolute shocker. 😂 Thats not a red card on Lundstram. All about him as per usual.
— Tam McManus (@The_Tman10) August 20, 2022
A former Premier League referee and even the home side’s manager also agreed that it was never a red card and that Collum has, once again, ruined a good game of Scottish football and influenced a result.
Lee Johnson on Lundstram red:
“In my opinion it’s a tactical foul, a yellow card.”
Agreed it was the same as his player’s foul in the first half.
— Graeme Hanna (@graeme818) August 20, 2022
Lundstram never a red card , Morelos red card !! https://t.co/rARlLrHLck
— Jeff Winter (@WinterJeff) August 20, 2022
And this is just a handful of the ex-players, journalists and pundits that have commented on how poor a call Collum made when he sent off Lundstram. He reacted to the players, the situation and because of calls that he had already made – I bet every Rangers fans’ WhatsApp group were talking at half-time about the fear of him evening things up.
VAR won’t solve every problem but it should – should – see an end to nonsense like we saw today, only the SFA and SPFL could implement something as important half-way through a season though,when decisions like this one have already been made and seen a team unfairly punished.