Aberdeen frustrated by VAR calls as Lawrence Shankland seals important win for Rangers
Derek McInnes finally got the response he needed. Rangers ground out a 1-0 win over Aberdeen at Pittodrie, with captain Lawrence Shankland converting a 69th-minute penalty to settle a bruising, low-quality contest — and with Aberdeen left aggrieved after a stoppage-time VAR intervention chalked off what would have been a dramatic
Coming just three days after McInnes described himself as “mortified” by Rangers’ Conference League exit to Jablonec, this was never going to be about aesthetics. It was, by most honest assessments, a game low on prettiness and quality — but for a manager whose job security had become a genuine talking point across Scottish football media in the space of a single week, it was exactly the kind of gritty, backs-to-the-wall win Rangers needed to produce.
McInnes made four changes to the side that had been eliminated in the Czech Republic, turning to two players he knew intimately from his time at Hearts — Shankland and Cammy Devlin — while also bringing in Findlay Curtis. The headline change, though, was a first Rangers start for Kim Min-su, the South Korean winger signed from Girona for a reported £8.5 million just days earlier.
Rangers lined up in a 4-2-3-1: Ivor Pandur in goal behind a back four of Dujon Sterling, Emmanuel Fernandez, Olwethu Makhanya and James Penrice, with Devlin and Dan Neil screening in midfield, and Curtis, Min-su and Djeidi Gassama supporting Shankland up front. Aberdeen, unchanged after a strong start to their own season having won six of their first seven games, set up in a 3-4-1-2 under Stephen Robinson, with Kevin Nisbet — who arrived having scored nine goals in his previous seven appearances across all competitions — partnered by Yogane up top, and captain duties falling to Nisbet himself.
Chances were relatively scarce in a tense, physical opening period. Aberdeen might have led inside two minutes had Dan Happe connected better with a Connor Ronan free-kick, while Mitchy Ntelo shot weakly at Pandur when well placed to do more. Rangers gradually found more control, with Min-su’s introduction to Scottish football offering flashes of quality — a couple of half-chances, a powerful 30-yard free-kick brilliantly tipped over by Aberdeen goalkeeper Marius Müller in the 55th minute, and a driving run from deep by Gassama in the 38th minute that set up the winger’s countryman for a shot Müller also had to save.
The breakthrough, when it arrived, came from the same buildup pattern repeating itself. Min-su’s shot was blocked by Müller, Shankland lurked for the loose ball, and although Aberdeen’s Afeez Aremu managed to complete the clearance for a corner, the resulting set piece brought the penalty: Shankland was brought down in the box by Aberdeen defender Daniel [surname unclear in reporting] after Djeidi Gassama had been involved in the buildup. Shankland, ice-cool given everything riding on the moment, sent Müller the wrong way from twelve yards to put Rangers 1-0 up in the 69th minute — his first goal for the club since arriving from Hearts in the summer, and about as significant a moment as a first goal could be given the circumstances surrounding his manager.
Aberdeen responded furiously, and looked to have salvaged a deserved point when Kevin Nisbet turned home a close-range header in the 83rd minute after Pandur had already saved efforts from Nisbet and substitute Ayoub Mouloua. Pittodrie briefly erupted — only for the goal to be ruled out following a VAR review, with the officials determining Nisbet had pushed Rangers full-back Dujon Sterling in the buildup to the effort.
It was a moment that carried a certain irony given Rangers’ own route to the opening goal had come via a converted penalty, and Aberdeen’s sense of grievance was compounded by an earlier incident: in the 81st minute, two minutes before the disallowed goal, Aberdeen had their own penalty appeal turned down when Sterling appeared to impede Nisbet from reaching a cross, with no action taken by referee Matthew MacDermid’s team on that occasion.
Taken together, the two flashpoints — a stonewall-looking Aberdeen penalty shout waved away, followed swiftly by a VAR intervention disallowing what would have been a deserved equalizer — left the home support and management with real, understandable grounds for frustration by full time, even if the disallowed-goal decision itself, a push in the build-up, was one most neutral observers would regard as a fair application of the letter of the law rather than a controversial or marginal call.
The result carries outsized significance well beyond three league points. It eases, at least for now, the growing external scrutiny that had built rapidly around McInnes following back-to-back European exits and a shaky domestic start — a run that had seen Rangers draw with Dundee United and lose to Hibernian in their opening two Premiership fixtures before Thursday’s chastening defeat to Jablonec. It also prevents Rangers from falling further adrift of champions Celtic at the top of the table so early in the campaign, and offers a tangible signal — even via an unconvincing performance — that this Rangers squad can dig in and grind out a result when circumstances demand it, rather than simply capitulating under pressure as they had in Bohemia three days earlier.
For a lunchtime trip to Pittodrie that’s rarely straightforward for Rangers at the best of times, doing so against a fired-up Aberdeen side that had won six of their first seven matches of the season represented a genuine test — one Rangers passed by competing physically and standing up to the occasion, even if the performance itself remained some distance short of convincing. As more than one report noted, Rangers’ display was better than the one produced in the Czech Republic — but that was, by any measure, an extremely low bar to clear.
McInnes now has some breathing room, however temporary, heading into the September international break and the remainder of the transfer deadline period. Min-su’s promising full debut offers a genuine positive to build on, and with Kevin Kelsy’s move from Portland Timbers still being finalized, McInnes’s attacking options should only strengthen further in the coming days
But the underlying concerns that fueled a week of intense scrutiny — an unconvincing playing style, a squad still bedding in amid heavy summer turnover, and a manager still searching for defensive and structural solidity — haven’t disappeared simply because Rangers found a way to win an ugly, low-quality game at Pittodrie. What this result buys McInnes, more than anything, is time: a chance to build from a platform of a first league win, rather than facing the international break under the kind of mounting pressure that had, by midweek, seen his position genuinely and openly questioned by former players, pundits, and sections of the club’s own support.
