Kevin Clancy does Rangers a favour with ‘really poor’ decision that cost Philippe Clement his job

For months, Rangers limped on, hoping that things would get better until, finally, there were no more chances left for Philippe Clement. 

Patrick Stewart said finances weren’t an obstacle to firing the Rangers manager, and so it proved with the Belgian being removed from his duties.

Ironically, he might still have been in a job if a historically unpopular figure amongst the Rangers support hadn’t intervened.

Rangers on wrong side of the referee again against St Mirren

The 2-0 defeat to St Mirren was the final blow, nobody escaped with pass marks and there were problems all over the pitch.

It was inevitable that Clement was going to be relieved of his duties.

At the back, Clinton Nsiala had a nightmare, however, speaking on Sky Sports’ Ref Watch, former Liverpool defender Stephen Warnock reckons that the young defender was stitched up:

“Well, I just said, why would a defender go down? It’s impossible to clip your own heels. You can’t do it, like, why would you even think about doing it,” said an exasperated Warnock.

“When the ball comes over your shoulder, like the Cody Gakpo one, the moment it’s coming over your shoulder, you’re trying to get the flight of it, you’re thinking, I’m going to clip my own heels here. It’s not happening.

“Watch, the striker clips him with his knee, his right leg comes across his heels and that’s what clips his heels. It’s a really poor decision.”

Why did Clancy change his mind?

Warnock is right. Clancy got the decision correct at full speed, he was close to the incident and had a good view.

He awarded the free-kick to Rangers only for VAR to spend several minutes replaying it. If it was a clear and obvious mistake, it would have been spotted straight away, but it wasn’t.