The bitter cost of irony underneath Rangers’ glorious triumph

We spoke earlier about Leon Balogun and his stunning cameo in at the deep end. True, he is a RB by trade and it was second nature to him, but it was his first match for Rangers in that slot, and he was a real pro who did his club and manager proud.

But what of stricken James Tavernier?

It won’t have escaped anyone’s attention that Steven Gerrard dismissed as ‘fake news’ a story claiming Tavernier had knee problems.

Fake news became real news as the captain hobbled off with a knee issue – only the second time in his Rangers career he’s had to leave the pitch through injury.

There was so much bitter irony going on in the RB slot last night, we barely know where to start, but we’ll give it a bash:

• Pre match claims Tavernier got a knee injury in training are dismissed out of hand as ‘fake news’ by Stevie.
• Tav then picks up a knock during a bad sideline tackle, and carries on anyway.
• He then came off worse in a 50/50 and tried to hobble on…
• Nathan Patterson sitting at home playing Xbox…
• Tavernier pulls up and has to be taken off.
• Patterson with his big moment to finally play at RB and… his own selfish stupidity cost him, probably his Rangers career.
• Ryan Jack expected to come on, warms up.
• But from nowhere it’s Leon Balogun who takes the slot, who it of course turns out is an experienced pro in this slot and more than able at this level.

Our sympathies of course to Tav who will be gutted to miss matches for the first real time in his Rangers career. We don’t know how long he’ll be out, but we do know his width on the right will be missed.

And Stevie has suggested we may make an emergency signing to cover his absence. Because right now we have one available RB in Balogun and his fitness isn’t reliable.

Stunning win that came with a cost.