Kilmarnock pile more misery on Rangers support

A highly charged, emotional day at Ibrox ended in a hugely disappointing defeat for Rangers, writes Nicholas Thomson.

At the end of a difficult week off the park for Ally McCoist’s side, focus was supposed to return to football. However, as has been the case on more than one occasion this season, too many of his players let him down.

More than 50,000 fans created a pre-match atmosphere similar to that reserved only for Old-Firm or major European games, and the home supporters were almost rewarded early on when Maurice Edu’s shot was cleared off the line by Liam Kelly.

That was it in terms of clear-cut chances for the ‘Gers in the first half as Kilmarnock rallied and went on to dominate the remainder of the period.

They flooded forward impressively at times and put the home defence under immense pressure for large parts of the first 45.

Killie’s attacking play was rewarded after 12 minutes when a slip by Dorin Goian allowed Paul Heffernan to slip Dean Sheils in, allowing the Ulsterman to finish well and low to Allan McGregor’s left.

In the end the visitors were good value for their win, and had chances to add a second or even a third goal, but they were rather profligate in front of goal.

The home side will point – quite rightly – to a disallowed Lee McCulloch goal midway through the second half after referee Iain Brines spotted a non-existent foul in the box following Steven Davis’ corner kick.

Referee Brines and his assistants made a catalogue of baffling decisions throughout the afternoon; however this cannot excuse the poor quality of play demonstrated by Rangers for large parts of the game.

They could have no complaints though over Sasa Papac being shown a straight red card two minutes prior to half time. The experienced Bosnian dived in high and late on Kelly, and he left the much maligned Brines with no option.

Full time brought spontaneous applause from the home support rather than the usual cacophony of boos a poor result such as this would bring.

Kilmarnock players and staff ran jubilantly to their small band of fans, with manager Kenny Shiels particularly milking the adulation.

Some Rangers players slumped to the turf at the final-whistle, with Lee McCulloch and Carlos Bocanegra visibly upset by the result.

Rangers are now only six points ahead of third placed Motherwell, while Kilmarnock have moved up to sixth.