We repeat the weekend’s mantra that we intensely dislike discussing referees here on Ibrox Noise, but with the sheer ‘noise’ surrounding the topic the past little while, it’s hard not to make a reference.

Rangers fans, for our part, have been whining about VAR and refs the whole season, with the club distastefully getting involved and trying to get Willie Collum banned from refereeing our matches.

Now, we will admit we grudgingly ‘praised’ ‘them lot’ for having done a better job of strong arming Scotland’s officials in the past, something Rangers have been very poor at, but we stop short of saying the refs themselves are cheating, even if one or two of us do suspect it.

But Brenda Rodgers’ rant this weekend, coupled with Philippe Clement’s, indicates that it is a bit of a false narrative in the first place, that it’s a distraction, a blame game.

Rodgers knew what he was doing, and Clement does too – by putting it out there that he’s not happy with the refereeing, ‘manager X’ influences the SFA and the SPFL, forcing their hand a bit and getting them to be a little more lenient.

And at the weekend it was Rodgers’ side’s turn to have an apparently big axe to grind with the officials and the manager made that very clear.

It’s something Clement has been doing a lot the last couple of months, pretending he backs the refs and supports them but also complaining about a tonne of what they do.

Rodgers went further, blaming VAR and ‘forces outside’ for what he believes are bad calls against him.

Clement tries not to get this obvious – he defends the refs and the officials, but says some things he didn’t agree with and he’d love to get some full transparency on decisions.

Ibrox Noise’s Derek suggested making VAR audio available, but of course, that’s not going to happen in Scotland. Yes, in England, but in Scotland and Glasgow’s goldfish bowl it isn’t going to happen.

But it doesn’t change that both managers rant and whine about refereeing, usually when it goes against their sides.

Rangers fans, indeed, are having a lot of fun at Brenda’s expense, taking a break from calling Celtic fans ‘obsessed’ to post constant memes about them and rant about Brenda’s hypocrisy.

We at Ibrox Noise don’t really care what Celtic fans are doing. Meltdowns probably.

End of the day, we always find ref discussion to be a distasteful topic, even when we’re the ones on the site doing it!

If football could be just about the product on the pitch and not the man in the middle it would be all the better.