The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Station Park victory hailed as ‘fantastic’
RANGERS BOSS Ally McCoist hailed his side’s 2-0 victory against Forfar as “fantastic” following another difficult week off the field for the club.
Goals from Bilel Mohsni and David Templeton were enough to move the league leaders 20 points clear in League One and McCoist was happy to talk about his players’efforts on the pitch for a change.
Talk of players rejecting pay cuts, the threat of administration and even criticism of his team’s pre-match stay in Carnoustie prior to last night’s game blighted Rangers’ preparations, but McCoist insists his players were focused on the task at hand.
“What was really evident was that we’ve got a really solid squad of players who want to do well and will work extremely hard to achieve that,” he told Courier Sport.
“That’s as much as you can ask for.
“It’s just a shame that the off-field stuff has taken a little bit of the focus off some of their results. But the main thing is that they’ve got each other, they are 20 points clear now and they need to keep going.
“It’s a fantastic result for us because it’s been proven before, this is a tough place to come for us.
“We’ve been knocked out the League Cup and we had a tight victory in the previous league game.”
Asked about the pre-match stay at the Carnoustie Hotel, he said: “This game was rescheduled around December 5 so we carried on and made our preparations then.
“I can understand people questioning it but it’s my job as manager to give our players the best opportunity they can to perform.
“We have always been as professional as we can and that will never change as long as I’m Rangers manager.”
screw at that point though and Daly headed over an Aird corner in the 70th minute.
Aird’s deliveries had threatened to cause problems in the second half and finally some end product saw Rangers take the lead in 75 minutes.
Aird’s inswinging corner was met well by Mohsni and his glancing header went in off Douglas’s right-hand post.
That looked to be that, but only a superb fingertip save by Simonsen a few minutes later kept the scores level when Mohsni’s attempted clearance hit Wallace and flew goalwards after a Forfar corner.
Gavin Malin was booked five minutes from the end for halting a Templeton charge, before Forfar were given a chance with two minutes to go when McCulloch fouled Templeman. Dale Hilson’s superb drive whistled inches past Simonsen’s lefthand post, and they were made to pay a minute later as the Ibrox side sealed their 20th league victory.
Substitute Templeton caused the Forfar backline to retreat and unleashed a superb curling effort into the top corner.