Kelsy double leads Rangers past St. Johnstone at Ibrox
Rangers beat St. Johnstone 4-0 in the Scottish Premiership, with Kevin Kelsy scoring twice and three goals arriving after the break.
By Harvey Watkins,
Rangers beat St. Johnstone 4-0 at Ibrox Stadium on Saturday afternoon in the Scottish Premiership. Kevin Kelsy scored twice, and Ryan Naderi and Tochi Chukwuani added the others. The second half settled it. Rangers led by a single goal at the interval, then scored three times after the break.
How the goals came
- 29' Kevin Kelsy (1-0)
- 61' Ryan Naderi (2-0)
- 66' Kevin Kelsy (3-0)
- 87' Tochi Chukwuani (4-0)
Kelsy opened the scoring on 29 minutes, and that was the only goal of the first half. A one-goal lead at the break is a position that can go either way. For just over an hour St. Johnstone were still within a single goal, and the final scoreline should not be allowed to obscure that.
The decisive spell
The match turned between the 61st and 66th minutes. Naderi doubled the lead just after the hour, and five minutes later Kelsy scored his second. A two-goal deficit would have taken some recovering from. Three, with almost half an hour still to play, effectively ended the contest.
Chukwuani's goal three minutes from time added to the margin rather than changing the outcome, but it shapes how the afternoon will be remembered. What was 3-0 became 4-0, and the result reads as more one-sided than the half-time position suggested. All three second-half goals came in a 26-minute stretch, and that spell is where the match was won.
Kelsy's afternoon
Kelsy was the only player to score more than once. He scored the opener and the third, which was the goal that put the game beyond reach. Two goals in a home win of this size will stand out on any reading. A scoresheet is a narrow lens, though, and it says nothing about the rest of a player's contribution.
The spread of scorers is worth noting too. Three different players found the net, so the margin did not rest on one man alone.
What the result does and does not say
For Rangers, a four-goal win with a clean sheet on MatchDay 10 is a clear and comfortable result. They scored in both halves, and they did not concede at any point.
For St. Johnstone, failing to score and conceding four away from home is a heavy defeat however it is framed. Even so, the match stayed at 1-0 until the 61st minute, and that is worth remembering before reading too much into the final margin. The damage came in a short burst rather than across the full 90 minutes.
A single match is a thin basis for broader conclusions. On its own, this result cannot tell us whether Rangers confirmed a pattern or St. Johnstone had a bad afternoon. What it does show is a home side that held a narrow lead through the first half and then pulled clear decisively in the second.