McCoist suggests Joe Aribo deserved man of the match in Rangers win

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Glasgow Rangers strolled into the quarter-final of the League Cup, with the Ibrox side running out 3-0 winners on Sunday.

Ally McCoist told BT Sport’s live post-match coverage of Rangers’ Scottish League Cup win on Sunday (broadcast on 18/8; 16:58) that he would have named Joe Aribo as the man of the match in the tie after the midfielder’s impressive performance.

Steven Gerrard’s side are into the quarter-final after winning 3-0 against East Fife in incredibly testing conditions. The Gers made 10 changes from the side that beat Midtjylland in midweek, with Glen Kamara proving to be the only player to keep his place for the tie.

Goals from Jermain Defoe and Filip Helander left Rangers 2-0 up with less than 10 minutes remaining before Aribo ensured that there would be no scope for a potential comeback as he poked the ball home from a corner to wrap up the win.

It was a good finish from the 23-year-old, who remained alert as the ball pinged around the East Fife penalty area. He now has four goals in eight appearances since completing his move to Ibrox in the summer, and McCoist suggested that he felt that he was the best player on the pitch, just ahead of Defoe, who was named man of the match.

“He deserved his goal,” he told BT Sport. “I actually thought he was probably just about man of the match. You can’t argue, Defoe’s got that little bit of quality which we see. But I thought that Aribo would have probably just about shaded it for me.”

While it was a difficult game to take a lot from, Gerrard will be extremely encouraged that a number of his players, including Aribo, showed the professionalism to ensure that Rangers reached the last eight in fairly comfortable fashion.

And Aribo will be hoping that he has done enough to force his way back into the starting lineup for Rangers’ clash with Legia Warsaw in the Europa League this week. He was an unused substitute in the second-leg against Midtjylland as Gerrard continues to rotate his squad.

The competition for a place in the team has arguably not been tougher since Rangers returned to the Scottish Premiership. But Aribo is staking a claim almost every time he steps out onto the pitch and is definitely making Gerrard’s task much harder.