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Gary McAllister of Rangers’s win over Livingston (broadcast 25/9 from 19:00) that Filip Helander was probably fortunate to avoid a red card.
Rangers set up a semi-final tie with Hearts after a 1-0 win against Livi. It was not an easy night for the Gers, with Lyndon Dykes causing plenty of problems for their centre-backs.
And it appeared that Helander was lucky to escape without punishment after a tackle on Dykes just before the break. The Livingston forward was running through on goal before being challenged by the Swede.
The referee deemed that Helander made a good challenge. However, replays showed that the centre-back brought down the man without getting the ball. And McAllister conceded that Rangers were lucky to avoid going down to 10 men.
“Now that I’ve seen the Helander one, it looks as if he’s caught the forward, so he possibly could go off,” .
Helander was fortunate. But Steven Gerrard will be pleased that the summer signing made the most of the luck.
Rangers have kept a clean sheet in each of the five games that the £3.5 million signing has played (). It is an extremely impressive record given that his partnership with Connor Goldson is still developing.
They are going to need some luck along the way if that run is going to continue. And it certainly appears that they got a piece of luck with the referee seeing nothing wrong in the challenge that the defender made against Livingston.