Arthur's Column // 29th November 2023

There has been a lot of debate about whether or not Rangers deserved a penalty on Sunday against Aberdeen.

It was a clear foul on Connor Goldson by Stefan Gartenmann. VAR was correct to intervene and Nick Walsh pointed to the spot.

It allowed James Tavernier to score another important goal for the team.

Had we lost the game, it would have been a total injustice. We deserved to win but we must settle for a draw.

However, we need to find a way to go to tough away venues and win.

That's what you must do if you want to become League champions. I think we have left two very valuable points behind at Pittodrie.

There was a really good opportunity to get right up beside Celtic and breathe right down their necks.

They drew at home to Motherwell and that was an unexpected result.

But we could take full advantage and that made me really frustrated. However, we haven't lost any ground on them, so that is a consolation.

Philippe Clement keeps his unbeaten run going since he became manager and I've no doubt he will continue to improve things.

The next tie is at home to Aris in the Europa League and I expect us to win the game.

Apart from losing in Cyprus to them last month, we have played well on the European stage and got some very good results.

I'm confident we will win on Thursday and that should be enough to take us into the next sage of the competition.

If that can be achieved, it means we can go to Real Betis on December 14th in the final game and have the option of 'resting' four or five players.

Given that it is the League Cup Final three days after that, the manager may well see that as a sensible thing to do.

But that is a decision for another day.

The most important thing is to win on Thursday and go into the home Premiership game on Sunday against St Mirren full of confidence.