Michael Stewart slams controversial Rangers v Dundee incident, makes point about VAR

Dundee were fortunate to avoid conceding a first-half penalty to Rangers as they lost 3-0 at Ibrox on Saturday, according to Michael Stewart.

Cyriel Dessers was brought to the ground by Dundee’s Mohamed Sylla with the midfielder looking as though he had both arms wrapped around the Dutch striker in the Premier Sports Cup quarter-final clash.

Dessers, 29, was then given a talking to by referee Chris Graham for protesting the decision to not award a spot kick.

Ex-Hearts midfielder Stewart believes there was enough to claim for a penalty with Dessers clearly being imposed by Sylla.

“He’s not happy, the big striker,” said Stewart on Premier Sports (6:11pm, 21 September).

“You can see there that Sylla’s got his two arms around the striker.

“Dessers is now being spoken to and the referee certainly doesn’t seem happy with the striker but I can understand why Dessers isn’t happy there. Sylla’s got both of his arms wrapped around him.

“I’m surprised that it’s not been looked at [by VAR]. It looks as if the referee’s looking right at it as well.

“Dessers is trying to move and shift.

“[Dundee are] fortunate.”

Sylla did concede a penalty in the second half for a foul on Dessers, leading to a goal by captain James Tavernier.

Should Rangers have been awarded penalty kick v Dundee?

If referees give penalties for that, they’ll be giving out several every game.

You cannot debate about whether or not there was contact – Sylla clearly had both his arms wrapped around Dessers.

He was grappling him but that happens all the time at corners and it’s not as though Sylla impeded Dessers to the point where he couldn’t win the ball.

If the Dutchman really wanted to win the ball at the corner, he would have been stronger because it didn’t look as though Sylla actually pulled him to the ground. It was more like the Ibrox striker fell into Sylla, potentially in a bid to win a penalty.

Neither did much wrong in the end but Rangers did get their penalty kick in early the second half with Sylla getting himself booked for a much more blatant pull on Dessers when he was going for the ball.

In other Rangers news, a BBC pundit raved about this Gers star against Dundee.

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