MICHAEL BEALE says he was pleased at Rangers’ response in the second half as the Light Blues sealed their place in the quarter-finals of the Scottish Cup with a 3-2 victory over Partick Thistle at Ibrox.
The Gers were forced to come from behind after Kevin Holt’s spot-kick edged the away side ahead before half-time, but goals from Antonio Colak and Malik Tillman, sandwiched between a bizarre moment of controversy, and an own goal from Connor McAvoy booked Rangers’ place in the last eight of the competition.
Speaking to RangersTV after an eventful 90 minutes, Beale conveyed his delight at his side being in the hat for tomorrow’s draw: “I’m delighted to be through to the quarter-final. I can’t say that I enjoyed the game, it was a difficult cup tie. We started quite well but we ultimately lacked rhythm in the first half and quality in the final third. Allan has had to make the one big save.
“There was a bit of a contentious penalty decision, but that’s where we’re going with the law at the moment and they go in 1-0. We made some changes at half-time to try and speed up the game and be a bit more direct in our running. We did well to turn the game around overall.
“There’s some warning signs there for us and we have big games coming up. We go away to Livingston next week and we have the cup final the week after. We need to improve. We have a good squad and, when they play, they have a duty to each other to play to a higher level than we did in the first half. There were no complaints with the second half performance.”
There was a moment of contention midway through the second half when, unaware to Malik Tillman who was on the ground after a strong tackle on him, he pinched a loose ball from Thistle’s restarting throw-in and proceeded to score.
Thistle were seemingly about to return the ball to Gers in any case, and after discussion between the bench and the players, Thistle were allowed to walk the ball into the goal for 2-2.
Beale clarified: “Malik goes down injured. He’s looking away from the play when Antonio puts the ball out. When he gets up, he’s unaware that they’re going to play the ball back and he goes to press it and runs through to score. He’s completely unaware. I had to speak to the rest of the bench and the management team behind me to make sure they saw what I had saw. I spoke to Malik as well and he confirmed that he was unaware of the situation.
“We don’t want to win a football match like that, it’s not the right way. It’s not anything that our club, with our standards, that we believe in. We want to win the game fair and square. We’ve done that in the end and there’s no harm done. It wasn’t a difficult decision to make. For people outside, they will look at it and have a view, but when you look at the full situation it was just a misunderstanding with Malik. I don’t want that hanging around his head. He’s such a fantastic young player and I don’t want that aimed at him because he was unaware of the situation that was occurring around him.”
There was also a first start for Nicolas Raskin after the Belgian made his Ibrox bow last weekend, producing an impressive performance as he teed up Colak for the leveller, and the Gers boss was delighted at the midfielder’s display.
He added: “He hasn’t started a game in a long time so it was fantastic to get 80 minutes in his legs. He had a really good assist.
“I’m also delighted for Antonio Colak, he’s had a difficult time with his fitness since I’ve been at the club. It was his first goal for a while, and now I think we’ll see the Antonio that we know and love. It was nice to see Kemar Roofe come back and, again, we’re talking about Malik Tillman for an excellent performance rather than that one situation which is important.”