By Robert McElroy
St. Mirren 2(Smyth pen 30, Boyd-Munce 90) Rangers 1 (Danilo 61)
Attendance 7,175
Rangers suffered a seriously damaging defeat in Paisley on Boxing Day when, going down 1-2 to St. Mirren with the home side netting an injury-time winner.
Philippe Clement made four changes from the victory over Dundee at Ibrox last Saturday with Jack Butland, Leon Balogun, Connor Barron and Nedim Bajrami coming in for Liam Kelly, Robin Propper, Nico Raskin and Danilo.
Rangers dominated the opening exchanges without creating any real chances as the Saints defence held firm – and as the first-half developed there was a distinct lack of imagination and penetration about the Light Blue attacks.
There was yet another injury blow for the visitors when Balogun limped off in the nineteenth minute to be substituted by Robin Propper.
The home side looked more and more threatening as the play developed – underlined on the half-hour mark when in a classic counter-attack a long ball out of defence found Greg Kiltie racing clear only to be upended by the outrushing Butland.
Referee David Dickinson immediately awarded a penalty, yellow-carding Butland in the process – and in all honesty it was hard to dispute the decision.
Oisin Smyth converted the spot-kick – and Rangers were trailing 1-0.
The Ibrox men did try to respond but it was not until the 42nd minute that they actually fashioned a shot on target when Mohamed Diomande’s volley was held by Saints’ ‘keeper Jack Balcombe.
The first-half ended with St. Mirren retaining that one-goal advantage – but the second-half would be a different story with Philippe Clement clearly recognising that change was essential, making a double substitution with Nico Raskin and Danilo introduced for Barron and Bajrami.
Rangers were soon driving forward upon the restart in search of an equaliser – two minutes in a James Tavernier 25-yard free-kick whistled inches wide then six minutes later from an Igamane lay-off Danilo’s left-foot shot was held by Balcombe.
Vaclav Cerny was becoming more and more prominent on the right – cutting inside just before the hour his powerful shot struck the crossbar, then sixty second later another Tavernier 25-yard shot from a Ianis Hagi opening was turned wide by Balcombe.
An equaliser appeared inevitable – and it duly arrived just after the hour mark when from a corner Raskin’s shot was blocked before Danilo netted from the rebound.
The Light Blues were now well on top, driving forward in search of the lead – and five minutes later Igamane played a one-two with Cerny only to curl his effort just over then shortly afterwards Cerny, driving forward from midfield, saw his twenty-yard drive flash inches over.
The pace and tempo of the Ibrox attacks slackened as the second-half wore on – almost as if Rangers were prepared to settle for a share of the spoils – an attitude that would cost them dearly in injury time as yet another defensive error proved costly with three Saints substitutes combining to telling effect when Jonah Ayunga dispossessed Dujan Sterling before finding Evan Mooney, his lay-off to Caolan Boyd-Munce producing a powerful left-foot drive for the winner.
A bad, bad result for Rangers – and one can only ask when they will realise that a game lasts for ninety minutes and one should give of your best for the entire match?
St. Mirren: Balcombe; Fraser, Gogic, Taylor; Bwomono (Iacovitti 61), Smyth, Phillips, John (Penman 82); Idowu (Boyd-Munce 73), Olusanya (Mooney 82), Kiltie (Ayunga 61)
Unused Subs: Mandron, Urminsky, Scott, Kenny
Rangers: Butland; Tavernier, Sterling, Balogun (Propper 19), Jefte (Yilmaz 77); Cerny, Barron (Raskin 46), Diomande, Bajrami (Danilo 46), Hagi; Igamane (Dessers 82)
Unused Subs: Cortes, Kelly, Dowell, McCausland
Referee: David Dickinson
