NEIL WARNOCK’s first experience on the touchline in Scottish football will go down in memory.
But perhaps more for what he said AFTER the game than what happened during – despite tonight’s thriller at Ibrox.
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Rangers went level on points with Celtic at the top of the Scottish Premiership with a 2-1 win.
That was despite going down to 10 men when Dujon Sterling was sent off thanks to goals from Rabbi Matondo on Todd Cantwell either side of a first-half stoppage time striker from Bojan Miovski.
Warnock was impressed with his first impression of this Aberdeen team and of Miovski in particular – who he reckons is the BEST striker in Scotland.
And he also had a word for the Ibrox ball boys as he accused them of time-wasting near the end of the match.
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Speaking to Sky Sports after the full-time whistle, Warnock said: “At the end there, you’ve got the ball boys adding five minutes on.
“They were really tuned in weren’t they, not giving them the ball back, make the climb over the wall.
“Do they have their own teachers?”
And in his post-match press conference he quipped the ball boys were “hiding the footballs up their jumpers”.
Warnock has long been known for his passion on the touchline and, let’s say, a tendency to refrain from holding back on discussing matters on the pitch with officials.
At one point he was engaged in a heated debate with the fourth official.
Asked by the BBC what was the topic of that particular conversation, Warnock said, somewhat jokingly: “I just told him how the Rangers lads were getting away with murder!”
He did however have praise for whistler Don Robertson, who gave Dujon Sterling a straight red card for a late tackle and stuck to his original call despite being summoned to the VAR monitor to review the incident.
Warnock said: “It makes a change doesn’t it for a referee to be brave and stick with his decision?
“We don’t get that in England.”
As if those weren’t enough headlines already, Warnock also praised Dons star Bojan Miovski as someone who could play in the Premier League TOMORROW – and challenged him to bag 30 goals this season to prove he’s the BEST striker in Scotland.
“I don’t think anybody’s better than him in Scotland,” he said in his post-match interview with RedTV, the Dons’ in-house media channel.
“He could go in the Premier League tomorrow and play with anybody. But I’m glad he’s here because I’m here.
“He’ll score 30 goals this season.”
On the experience of the game itself, Warnock told Sky: “It’s been a hectic few days, I enjoyed watching them and they can only get better.
“We grew into the game and I said at half-time I thought we could do better in the final third.
“They’ve had a good run at home and it’s a difficult place to come. It wasn’t to be but I can’t credit them enough for the way they stuck at it.
“The crowd at Ibrox, the ground was fabulous, the pitch was lovely. It was a fabulous occasion.
“It was my kind of game that.”
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He added: “I thought the application was excellent. To go a goal down early on, a lot of teams might have crumbled but I thought we hung in there.
“I thought we grew into the game, to get the goal like we did was a real plus. I felt we were rushing a bit, playing the occasion and not calming down but I thought we did that as the game moved on.”
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