Former Celtic striker John Hartson was very impressed by Ryan Kent last night as Rangers drew 0-0 with Spartak Moscow at Ibrox.
Talking on BT Sport’s live coverage of the game (BT Sport, Thursday, 7pm), Hartson said that Kent was the best Rangers player on the pitch and that if they’d kept up the deliveries to him in the second-half, they would have come away with a win.
He also claimed that Rangers should have had a penalty when winger Eros Grezda went down in the box in the second-half.
Grezda then had a chance to win the game with the last kick of the game but blazed the ball over the bar.
“I didn’t think Rangers were doing too much wrong,” Hartson said after the game. “The only thing they couldn’t do was keep feeding the ball to Ryan Kent.
“He was very good, the bright spark for them. Morelos was better in the second-half, he went looking for it. It’s not the worst result in the world but they’ve got two out of the next three away from home.”
Asked about the penalty shout when Grezda went down in the box, Hartson said Rangers were unlucky not to get a spot-kick.
“If Grezda gets to the ball first it’s a penalty. I think if he’s got to the ball first and then he’s been kicked he’s within his rights to go over, and there was contact… It’s a penalty for me. I think that Spartak got away with one there.”
OPINION
Kent has been getting better and better each week and he was indeed the bright spark for Rangers on a night when they could and probably should have won. However, there wasn’t a lot in the game and a draw was perhaps a fair result. Rangers have kept their European record intact though and Gerrard will be delighted by that. Kent was the standout in the first-half and fell away a little towards the end, although he created the glorious chance for Grezda to win it at the end and make himself an instant Rangers hero. He controlled a long ball beautifully in the box and laid a perfect pass to Grezda who just didn’t have the composure to tuck it away. It’s a shame – it would have been an exciting end to the game for Gerrard and the brilliant Ibrox fans. We’ve watched the Grezda penalty incident a number of times and we just can’t make our minds up. It looks like a penalty if you don’t slow things down, but there doesn’t actually seem to be much contact when you look really closely. They’ve definitely been given and Rangers fans would have been delighted if it had been, and Spartak fans would have been up in arms.