Substitute Ryan Naderi capitalised upon a defensive mix-up to get the only goal of the game as Rangers beat Motherwell to go second in the Scottish Premiership. Manager Derek McInnes was forced to watch from the stands at Ibrox as he served the second match of his two-game touchline ban for comments made last season while in charge of Hearts, with a further two games suspended. And he would have initially been in despair after a positive Motherwell start was followed by the early withdrawal of captain Lawrence Shankland due to an injury after barely 10 minutes. But Shakland’s replacement, Naderi, would have eased the manager’s frustration as he put Rangers in front within a few minutes of coming on.
A couple of loose touches from Motherwell’s centre-backs saw the ball diverted back to goalkeeper Alex Paulsen, who inexplicably tried to take on the on-rushing Naderi. The forward tackled Paulsen on the edge of his area and rolled the ball into an empty net to give Rangers the lead. Rangers goalkeeper Ivor Pandur made two excellent saves, first to prevent Regan Charles-Cook from scoring, before saving down to his right to deny Alex Lowry after an excellent Motherwell counter-attack. Minsu Kim squandered the first of three excellent chances he had to score when he headed straight at the goalkeeper, before Djeidi Gassama was clattered into in the area by Tom Sparrow as he tried to meet Dan Neil’s cross, with the referee awarding a penalty.
With regular penalty taker Shankland off the pitch, Minsu stepped up but he missed the target, dragging his spot kick wide. Minsu was denied again in the second half after a good Paulsen save, which saw the rebound hit the post, before the South Korean was withdrawn alongside Gassama, with Daisuke Yokota coming on as well Kevin Kelsy for his Rangers debut. Nico Raskin then saw a shot cleared off the line before Yokota sliced wide with the goal at his mercy. Kevin Kelsy was unable to capitalise upon another good Rangers chance for when he failed to keep a shot down, missing an opportunity to put the gloss on the win with a debut goal.
