As Rangers were awarded two penalties in the weekend’s win over Livingston, you could almost instantly hear the clacking of headlines being written.
James Tavernier might’ve missed the first one – an admittedly soft penalty award which has seen young Ross McCausland branded a diver – the skipper duly converted the second.
Whilst the latter of the penalties, a handball by Mikey Devlin from a corner, was more concrete, you’ll be unsurprised to hear that the McCausland award appears to be evidence of something of a penalty ruse.
The usual Celtic voices have been mixing the pot in punditry and getting fans talking online with the hysteria even reaching into calls for an overhaul of how the game is officiated.
Mark Wilson was the latest to take a dig, joking about James Tavernier’s “extraordinary” run of penalties at Rangers on Sky Sports.It’s not just our Old Firm rivals who’ve started suggesting there’s a stitch up between Rangers and the referees, with the contention now a running joke in the vernacular of Scottish Premiership football.
Stuart Cosgrove was even talking on the BBC this week about the “inherent bias” in favour of Rangers which led to the club being awarded more tickets than Aberdeen for the League Cup Final.
Perhaps most criminally, as a result of this chatter the relentless James Tavernier – who’s benefited from a total of 58 penalty goals for Rangers – is often labelled a spot kick merchant even through he’s netted 54 goals from other areas of the pitch.
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