Goals from Kieran Dowell and Todd Cantwell helped Rangers to a 2-0 victory over Motherwell at Fir Park this afternoon.
Dowell opened the scoring after just three minutes when he fired the ball high into the roof of the net after completing a neat one-two with Cyriel Dessers on the edge of Motherwell’s penalty area.
His former Norwich City teammate Todd Cantwell then doubled the visitors’ advantage 13 minutes later when Adballah Sima’s chested lay-off teed him up to sweep the ball into the bottom corner from the edge of the box.
Rangers manager Philippe Clement extends his unbeaten run to 16 matches as the Light Blues return to within two points of Celtic at the top of the table with a game in hand still to be played.
Stuart Kettlewell’s Motherwell are now winless in 15 matches and remain 11th in the cinch Premiership table.
The Rangers manager was pleased by his side’s performance despite adverse weather conditions. He said:
“In the circumstances of today, we played a very good first half with good attacking football, two good goals, several good chances.
“Second half the wind was even harder and the difficulty was it was really turning around in the stadium so it was difficult to play good football, good quality football that we want to bring, so there was less quality on the ball.
“I don’t think there was one really shot at goal today was from the Motherwell side so we controlled the game well and we have the three deserved points.”
Motherwell boss Stuart Kettlewell was surprised not to see his forward Mika Biereth awarded a penalty in second half. He added:
“I’m seeing them given as penalties constantly.
“I think Rangers themselves have benefited from a number of incidents like that.
“My question is: are we actually checking them? We keep being told that everything is being checked.
“I’m not sure specifically it that one has been checked because it would defy anyone to tell me if that has been checked that we are okay with it.
“I’m watching it every single week that slight pulls of jerseys, slight pull of the arm, tugging of the arm results in a penalty….
“I will probably be told that there is some other obscure rule that there was a reason why as to why it wasn’t given…”
