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Europa: Aribo on target as Rangers win narrowly against Antwerp

 

Super Eagles ace Joe Aribo was on target as Rangers earned a narrow win over Antwerp in the Europa clash on Thursday.

Aribo and Ryan Kent hit goals which went a long way to knocking out the Belgians.

In an extraordinary night of football the home side made Gerrard’s men sweat for the victory – but the end result was no more than the Ibrox side deserved.

This victory came at a close with the loss of James Tavernier to injury a cruel twist of fate for the luckless Ibrox skipper.

Before flying out of Glasgow on Wednesday afternoon Gerrard had dismissed a report which questioned the full-back’s fitness.

But the next time he touched the ball he dropped to the deck realising his night was prematurely over.

Experienced centre-back Leon Balogun stepped off the bench to take his place with Gerrard suddenly left ruing the absence of kid right-back Nathan Patterson who was back home self-isolating after stupidly going to a house party at the weekend.

Rangers, though, looked like they would shake off the early blow as they took the lead after 38 minutes.

Antwerp keeper Alireza Safar Beiranvand blundered when he spilled the ball after Kemar Roofe burst into the box after a searching pass from Conor Goldson from the back.

Alfredo Morelos did well to nick the ball to Aribo and he showed real composure to pass cooly into the net.

It was looking so good for Rangers at that stage of the game.

They were playing well and attacking dangerously whenever they got bodies into the final third.

But Antwerp managed to draw level in 44 minutes before incredibly taking the lead in stoppage time at the end of the first-half

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Rangers had an early shout for a penalty themselves when there appeared to be a handball inside the Antwerp box, but the Belgians escaped.

It required a VAR decision with the hopeless whistler missing a clear dug on Morelos’ jersey by defender Ritchie de Laet.

 

 

 

 

 

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