If one thing stood out last night at Ibrox, it was the lack of send off for Rangers’ stalwart Borna Barisic.
Yes, he got his lap of honour post-match, an emotional one at that, but manager Philippe Clement’s refusal to give him a final cameo in Govan for what would have been his last appearance, to us, screamed of petty and crass and far from good man-management.
We’re happy young Robbie Fraser got to enjoy his debut as a Rangers player, and he did well, but that 6 years at Rangers and the third-most appearances in the squad and Borna gets denied a final donning of the jersey was, for us, very, very poor.
Even Lee Wallace, despite his ignominy with the board back then, got a final send off with Steven Gerrard giving him the final 5 minutes to say goodbye to the fans in a fairly classy move, appreciated by the fans.
Now, we know Borna is nowhere near as loved as Waldo was, and indeed many fans have very much turned on him such as been his admittedly poor performances for 24 months, give or take.
But 6 years at Rangers and having been a big contributor in the past, we can’t help feeling he deserved a little better than being overlooked for a final cameo in front of the home fans.
While we’re very happy Fraser got his moment to prove he’s got some serious potential, Borna also deserved a subs’ appearance to say goodbye properly, and Clement denied him this.
We think that’s bad – we think that’s poor man-management and showed the Croat no respect.
He might be leaving, and the boss might not be thrilled about that (maybe he is) but the ex-Osijek man has given 6 years of his life to Rangers, and should have got one last appearance at Ibrox just to properly bow out.
But no, we’ll never see him at Rangers again and he didn’t even get a proper send off.
Harsh? Maybe some fans think he deserves it, that he’s been so poor and been looking elsewhere so long that he didn’t earn a goodbye.
Maybe he didn’t.
But it shouldn’t be the Rangers way to treat long-standing servants this way, especially when Clement praised Borna as ‘hungry’ and ‘wanting to win trophies’ only 10 days ago.
We knew that was manure, but it just makes him look silly for saying then bad for ghosting the player on his last Ibrox evening.
Not great.