'Bottles It' - BBC pundit reacts instantly to 'Huge' incident in Rangers v Hearts

Steven Thompson felt John Souttar was extremely lucky not to have contributed to Rangers conceding in the first half in a “huge” moment against Hearts.

The centre-back played a woeful backpass that Kenneth Vargas pounced on at Ibrox on Sunday but Jack Butland came out quickly to quell the danger.

Former Rangers striker Thompson, covering the game on BBC Sportsound (10 November), provided his instant reaction to the incident in a game where the Gers ran out 1-0 victors.

“A really big mistake from John Souttar there, really short with the back pass there, Vargas was onto it, he sees Butland coming out I think he sort of bottles it a wee bit, he thinks he’s gonna get caught but he’s really gotta make some sort of action.

“Big, big let-off for Rangers there. Huge.”

John Souttar a lucky boy in Rangers versus Hearts

This has been the issue for Rangers pretty much all season, just moments of sheer incompetence and Souttar was an extremely lucky boy that his significant error was not punished further.

The Gers were leading at the time from Cyriel Dessers’ strike and, though Hearts had a little bit of a spell following the strike, were reasonably comfortable at that stage of the game.

So Souttar’s inexplicable backpass really could have caused some big issues for the hosts and undone the work they had done to that point to get themselves into the lead.

As it was, Rangers survived and then kept the lead until half-time and then went on to see out the game to take three points and put a good endpoint on what has been a good few days for Philippe Clement and co. following the spirited Europa League draw at Olympiacos.

They will need plenty more in the coming months but at least they can go into the international break on a high.

In other Rangers news, one striker linked with the club reacted to a question on his future.

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