Rangers came out on top thanks to a late Borna Barisic penalty
Chris Sutton isn’t always the most complimentary when it comes to Rangers, but he was adamant that they deserved their victory in Belgium on Thursday night.
A pulsating encounter ended 4-3 to the visitors, who found themselves 2-1 and 3-2 down at various points against Royal Antwerp.
With eight minutes remaining it looked like Steven Gerrard’s men were heading for defeat, but a superb Ryan Kent goal followed by Borna Barisic’s second penalty of the night secured a memorable win.
Tweeting shortly after full-time, Sutton said: “Brilliant match. Rangers deserved it. Ref shocking for both teams.”
The former Celtic man had earlier been critical of Antwerp’s Lior Refaelov, tweeting: “That’s an awful dive.”
Refaelov earned his side a penalty in the dying moments of the first half, going down in the box despite little contact from Steven Davis.
Speaking at half-time on BT Sport, Rangers legend Ally McCoist expressed his astonishment at the decision.
He said: “It’s a scandalous decision. I’m embarrassed for Refaelov going down, but I’m equally if not more embarrassed for (Georgi) Kabakov the Bulgarian referee.
“I mean, that is embarrassing to say the least. Look at the referee. He’s watching it, he’s absolutely watching it.
“And do you know the problem we’ve got? We’ve actually got VAR now. It’s just compounded the referee’s mistake.”
Refaelov converted to make it 2-1 for the home side at the break, but Rangers triumphed after a frenetic second period.
Talking to BT Sport after the match, Gerrard said: ” I’m just waiting for the heart rate to come down.
“It was a fantastic game for the neutral, I’m sure you all enjoyed it, but from a manager’s point of view there’s certainly a lot to analyse.
“It’s a crazy football match to analyse right now because it’s only just finished, but I think once I watch it back it will be proven that defensively we need to work a lot and improve a lot.
“But it shows that we have got character and a lot of quality in our team.”
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