McGregor and Morelos howlers
Allan McGregor won countless points for Rangers’ last season with his heroics between the sticks – but today the goalkeeper’s mistake in the 90th minute led to the Ibrox club dropping two.
He failed to punch clear a Gary Mackay-Steven corner and the ball fell to Craig Halkett who nodded in from a few yards out. It was an uncharacteristic error and a hugely costly one.
That said, Alfredo Morelos must shoulder his share of the responsbility for this 1-1 draw. The Colombian squandered two gilt-edged opportunities in the latter stages of proceedings.
The Scottish champions should have won this one comfortably and only have themselves to blame for the result.
Scotland’s No1
Craig Gordon ensured Scotland avoided being held to a draw by the Faroe Islands in Torshavn on Tuesday night – and he kept Hearts in the game against Rangers at Ibrox today with a series of brilliant saves.
Steven Gerrard’s side dominated Robbie Neilson’s team in the first-half and would have taken the lead earlier had it not been for the visitors’ goalkeeper; he denied Scott Wright, Ianis Hagi and Leon Balogun.
He was equal to attempts from Kemar Roofe and Connor Goldson after half-time.
His display underlined why he is once again an automatic pick for his country and Steve Clarke’s team can finish second in their Qatar 2022 qualifying group and go through to the play-offs.
Lundstram goes from strength to strength
That John Lundstram was once again preferred by Steven Gerrard to Steven Davis in the middle of the park for this top-of-the-table cinch Premiership match showed how well the Englishman has been performing.
He more than justified his selection with an assured performance alongside Joe Aribo and Glen Kamara and opened the scoring five minutes before half-time after a Craig Halkett clearance fell to him 25 yards out.
The former Sheffield United man did well to keep his shot down and beat Craig Gordon. He has put the shaky start in Scotland firmly behind him and was a deserved Man of the Match. His experience and intelligence will be important for the Scottish champions in the months ahead.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel