BBC pundit Chris Sutton has criticised Malik Tillman for scoring a controversial goal in the most recent Rangers game.
Was Tillman wrong to score for Rangers?
In the Scottish Cup this weekend, the Ibrox side managed to claim a narrow 3-2 home win over Partick Thistle. The game, though, did not pass without incident.
Indeed, around the 70th minute, after the ball had been put out of play for Tillman to receive treatment for an injury, action resumed with the opposition thrown back the ball. However, the striker quickly moved to score without fairly giving Partick the chance to properly regather possession.
His effort stood but Rangers and manager Micheal Beale sportingly allowed Partick Thistle to then run through on goal unopposed to quickly even things up.
While talking about the incident on BBC’s 606, Sutton weighed in on it all, slamming Tillman for his “poor” behaviour.
The pundit said: “Yeah, there was a big, big controversial incident up there, wasn’t there?
“Tillman scoring a goal which he shouldn’t have done. He shouldn’t have scored because I think he was injured and went back on. And the Partick Thistle players were outraged. Really poor from Tillman.”
How does the Tillman incident reflect on Rangers?
There is no rule stopping Tillman from doing what he did, hence why the goal was allowed to stand, but it certainly wasn’t a good look for the youngster.
However, the case has been made that as he was the player down injured, he didn’t realise the ball had been put out of play and so when the game resumed he assumed things were just carrying on as normal.
Partick Thistle boss Ian McCall certainly seemed to give the player the benefit of doubt. He told BBC Sport: “I don’t think Malik Tillman knew what he was doing. I think he got mixed up and put it in the net.
“Michael Beale showed an awful lot of class, so did James Tavernier to do what they did. It was the right to do so there’s no blame on anybody, not even the ref. I’ve been involved in the game since 1981 – I’ve never seen it before.”
While Beale also defended his player, saying: “It was a big misunderstanding, the whole thing. Malik gets injured. We play the ball out. Malik’s on the floor, he’s unaware that we’ve played the ball out so when he gets up, he just thinks it’s a throw-in to Partick Thistle. He presses innocently and then he’s through on goal and he goes and finishes the move.
Ironically enough, Sutton was once involved in a similar incident when he scored for Blackburn Rovers against Arsenal. The former player has since admitted, “Martin Keown wanted to rip my head off”.
With that in mind, you’d think he’d be a little more sympathetic to the Rangers man.
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