St. Mirren 2 (O’Hara 44, McMenamin 75) Rangers 2 (Dessers 41, Raskin 52)

Attendance 7,019

By Robert McElroy

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Yet another disappointing result for a Rangers side who have now failed to achieve a single victory in their last five outings.

Barry Ferguson made four changes from Bilbao with Robin Propper, Clinton Nsiala, Bailey Rice and Hamza Igamane coming in for Leon Balogun and Ridvan Yilmaz (both injured), Vaclav Cerny and Ianis Hagi.

With both sides committed to attack it was Rangers – wearing all-blue – who carved out the first chance when Cyriel Dessers saw his hooked left-foot shot following a long ball from Nsiala turned wide by home ‘keeper Zach Hemming as early as the fourth minute.

If the Ibrox striker was out of luck on that occasion then he certainly should have opened the scoring nine minutes later when he coolly chested down a Mohamed Diomande cross only to slice the ball over.

If that was a bad miss then Mikael Mandron was guilty of an even worse one just before the half-hour mark when Liam Kelly passed the ball straight out to him, only for the centre to fire over the bar with an unguarded goal at his mercy.

In truth, St. Mirren were probably the better side throughout most of the first-half with the Light Blues lacking cohesion and creativity in attack, yet against the balance of play it was the visitors who opened the scoring on 41 minutes when Nico Raskin found Dessers, who slotted the ball home with a left-foot shot.

The lead however did not even last until the interval when a long throw-in from Killian Phillips created havoc in the visitors’ defence, enabling Saints’ Captain Mark O’Hara to rifle the ball into the net.

To the surprise of many, Barry Ferguson opted against any half-time substitutions – and within seven minutes of the restart Rangers had regained the lead when Raskin broke through on a Diomande opening to fire home with a low left-foot twenty-yard shot.

The Light Blues now looked the likelier to increase their lead – but there remained a fragility about the visitors’ back-line, underlined in the 64th minute when a John Souttar error allowed Phillips to back-heel the ball into the path of Roland Idowu, who saw his shot diverted wide by Liam Kelly.

St. Mirren did however find another equaliser on 75 minutes when former Ranger Declan John broke down the left, his cutback finding the unmarked home substitute Conor McMenamin who slotted the ball home.

The scorer looked suspiciously offside – even on video replays – yet VAR did not intervene on an afternoon when not one on-field decision by Referee Colin Steven was over-turned, leaving many to question whether the system was in operation in the first place…!

Vaclav Cerny was immediately introduced for Dessers with Connor Barron and Nedim Bajrami substituting in the closing stages for youngsters Rice and Nsiala as both sides searched for a third, potentially decisive goal.

Cerny, combining with Raskin in the 89th minute, broke through the Saints’ defence to fire in a left-foot shot that was turned wide by home ‘keeper Zach Hemming then deep into added time Raskin again (the outstanding Ranger throughout) surged down the left only to see his cutback just elude the inrushing Hamza Igamane by inches.

The game ended all-square – and at the final whistle the only consolation for Rangers, if one can call it that, was that second-place in the Premiership had been secured with Hibernian suffering defeat at Pittodrie, opening up a pathway to next season’s UEFA Champions’ League.

St. Mirren: Hemming; Fraser, Gogic, Taylor; Alebiosu, Phillips, Boyd-Munce (Idowu 63), O’Hara, John (Tanser 80); Ayunga (McMenamin 63), Mandron (Oseni 90)

Unused Subs: Smyth, Scott, Urminsky, Iacovitti, Kiltie

Rangers: Kelly; Souttar, Propper, Nsiala (Bajrami 86); Tavernier, Diomande, Raskin, Rice (Barron 84), Jefte; Igamane, Dessers (Cerny 75)

Unused Subs: Butland, Cortes, Hagi, Curtis, McCallion, Danilo

Referee: Colin Steven