Disgraceful abuse aimed at Rangers pair is unacceptable

Ibrox Noise was a little disappointed with reaction to our recent congratulations to both Malik Tillman and Rabbi Matondo after both attackers were named in their country’s national squads over this current break.

The reaction?

95% of the responses slaughtered both players, offering no congratulations, just calling them duds and a waste of time and money.

Only a slim minority of fans had anything positive to say about the pair, despite the fact their national coaches clearly deem both of them good enough to merit a call up to very significant international teams.

Now, this is not to say the supporters are wrong – Matondo hasn’t shone at Rangers yet, and Tillman has himself gone a little off the boil after that initial flying start led to overreactions of ‘sign him now’ from the faithful.

But to actively abuse these players instead of offering them support during this proud moment is utterly poor, and the kind of conduct we’d never expect from this club’s supporters.

Sure, they’ve not won fans over yet, fine – we get that, but as Rangers players, they’re one (or two) of us and hurling them under the bus just when they get a major career milestone is absolutely disgraceful.

We want both of them to succeed, and we’ve seen plenty of Tillman to know he can, and Matondo’s being endorsed by Robert Page is a decent ribbon to put on your CV.

The Welshman is yet to show what he can do, but he’s yet to really get the chance to either – and we saw in preseason glimpses of the pace and the talent.

But our point?

Slurring and taunting our players on the career milestone of a call up to their national team is absolutely shocking, and we cannot condone that.