26/04/2025 – RANGERS (H)

Our first top 6 match of this season was an action packed, incident filled and sometimes controversial affair, against 2nd placed Rangers, with Saints looking to do a treble over an Ibrox based club for the first time since 1979/80.

In truth we should have achieved this, and fairly comfortably. In our opinion, we were excellent and absolutely everything good about a Stephen Robinson side was on display in bucketloads throughout 90 plus minutes where Saints were the better side for most of.

Of course since our last match, Toyosi Olusanya has left Saints for Houston Dynamos, with the US side paying a reported $250,000 for his immediate transfer (around £190,000) despite only a month or so left of his contract.

This meant Jonah Ayunga and Mikael Mandron partnered each other in attack, and the front two gave a shaky Rangers defence all sorts of issues during the match, backed up by a tremendous midfield performance from Killian Phillips and Mark O’Hara.

The captain created the first real chance of the match when he dispossessed John Souttar and raced into the penalty area, however with both Mandron and Phillips in support got caught in two minds and miskicked his pass to Robin Propper.

Mikael Mandron passed up an even better opportunity ten minutes later when he read the intentions of Liam Kelly and intercepted his pass, only to smash the ball over from 12 yards with the goal gaping.

Rangers punished Saints for this in the lead up to half-time when Cyril Dessers opened the scoring following a rare attack from the visitors, but this just seemed to anger Saints and O’Hara smashed home a loose ball a few minutes later to draw us level.

This was the end of the action in a pulsating half, a 45 minutes of football scattered with some genuinely baffling decisions from the referee and this would continue throughout the match, however this did little to deter the home side who continued to press the visitors into submission.

However, Saints recent weak point of conceding from practically every shot on target continued, when Nicolas Raskin fired home from 20 yards unopposed, early in the second half to give Rangers the lead again.

Chances came and went for Saints, but eventually with just over 10 minutes remaining, Conor McMenamin fired home his third of the season after brilliant work from Idowu and John.

That was the end of the scoring, and on the basis of play, 2 points dropped for Saints in our very unlikely battle for European football. However, with Dundee Utd losing 5-0, the gap to them is reduced to eight points, but with only 4 matches remaining including our trip to Tannadice.

Despite the dropped points, it is very hard to be critical of Saints. We were playing a side that probably pays just one player more than our entire combined starting XI on Saturday, yet it was us that looked like a better side throughout the match.

The attack and midfield have already been mentioned, however the threat of the wing backs was also extremely noticeable. Ryan Alebiosu is an absolute machine going forward, and it would be great to get him signed up for next season should the opportunity arise.

Declan John continues to impress on the left, and there can’t be many sides in Scotland with such strong options on that side with Scott Tanser on the bench.

In defence, Marcus Fraser continues to have his best season in the stripes, and is a strong candidate for player of the season, along with Phillips and O’Hara in our opinion.

Fraser may have won a late penalty for Saints, but VAR concluded after a long check that the foul was outside the box, although having watched it again on Sportscene, we are yet to be convinced that was correct, but we are very very biased admittedly.

Next up for Saints is Aberdeen at home, another side we have beaten twice this season, like Rangers.

Toyosi Olusnaya had scored in his last 4 matches against the Dons, in fact he has probably ended Slobodan Rubezic’s career at the Pittodrie club as the big Montenegrin repeatedly was annihilated by the rapid Englishmen.

Someone else now needs to take that role on, and who knows, a win may reduce the gap with Dundee Utd to 5 points with a trip to Tanandice up after the match against the Dons.

I’m sure with our support, we can do our part and win the match.

COYS!

Rangers Players of the Match:

5 points – Killian Phillips

3 points – Declan John

1 point – Mark O’Hara

Check our the Player of the Season race here –

PLAYER OF THE SEASON