Rangers kept their cool on a night of bedlam to make it a hat-trick of Scottish Premiership wins for Philippe Clement since taking charge as they earned a 5-0 victory over Dundee in a game that was delayed and then suspended.
Ryan Jack and Danilo – his second in as many games – and Sam Lammers and Cyriel Dessers – who both responded to fierce criticism – and James Tavernier from the penalty spot were all on target to earn the win and keep the Light Blues five points behind leaders Celtic and ensure they go into Sunday’s Viaplay Cup semi-final against Hearts at Hampden in confident mood. Rangers produced a dominant display but while it was a comfortable 90 minutes, everything else around the game was anything but.
Rangers suffered a nightmare journey to Tayside with the team bus stuck in traffic en route to Dens Park and Clement had more personnel problems to contend with as Ben Davies was ruled out and Leon Balogun came in for a first appearance in more than two months. And if the travel problems didn’t disrupt the preparations enough then more frustrating was a further delay due to a pyro show from the visiting support setting off a fire alarm and Kevin Clancy took the players off on police advice.
After an 18 minute delay, the players reappeared and Gers wasted no time in getting their noses in front. Balogun burst out of defence and fed Danilo and the Brazilian’s effort was parried by Trevor Carson into the path of Ryan Jack who had a simple tap in. It was a rare error from Carson but the Northern Irishman pulled off a stunning point blank save to deny Danilo and while the offside flag did go up, the shot-stopper wasn’t aware of that, and he thwarted Abdallah Sima who was also clean through.
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Danilo had a great chance early in the second half but fired over after racing clean through and the South American should have done better. But he made no mistake moments later when he got another chance as he rounded off a well-worked move. Ex-Dundee man Scott Wright did well with a forward run and he fed Sima who cushioned a ball into Danilo’s path and he fired home.
That looked like game over although it took Jack Butland to deny the Dark Blues a lifeline with a superb double save, first from Luke McCowan and then Amadou Bakayoko, to justify his new terrace chant to Status Quo’s Rockin’ All Over the World. Having got on the scoresheet himself, Danilo then turned provider as he laid the ball off for Lammers from John Lundstram’s pass and the under-fire Dutchman produced an exquisite strike into the top corner.
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