Hagi madness as Rangers playmaker gets banned and injured | OneFootball

So obviously we have to touch on returning playmaker Ianis Hagi’s eventful cameo at Ibrox in Govan on Sunday, as the Rangers attacker basically couldn’t have stood out more for both the right and very wrong reasons.

The initial appearance was promising, and he even nailed an assist (albeit it was one of those (many) assists which doesn’t really count but registers as one), but it was what came after which created the real talking point.

An extremely ugly, crude, and late high studs out challenge on Benjamin Kimpioka which could have led to serious injury on the Swedish striker, whose initial yellow card was then upgraded to red on VAR review, rightly.

While some Rangers fans decided to absolve Hagi of all blame and instead gaslight Kimpioka for not wearing shinguards, the tackle was inescapably absolutely horrible.

Had it been an opposing player on a Rangers man, supporters would have rightly slammed the individual, called him every name under the sun and suggested he should never play again.

In fairness, the majority of comments did not defend Hagi, most did admit this was a clear red card.

Was it malicious? Probably not, but maliciousness isn’t that relevant when the actions led to a player strewn on the floor.

It was a nasty little moment, on the day where it was revealed Aberdeen will ‘celebrate’ Neil Simpson (more on that later), who of course more or less ended Ian Durrant’s career with arguably one of the most horrible ‘tackles’ we’ve ever seen in football, so Hagi really doesn’t have much defence.

In fact, he probably couldn’t have timed such a bad tackle any worse.

The further irony? It appears he injured himself in the moment too, and probably would have had to come off if he’d got away with the yellow.

As it is, he is now straight banned for a while (and potentially injured again), and after all the hype of him being available again, he’s his own worst enemy.

Marvellous.