Glasgow Rangers manager Steven Gerrard has explained why he had to substitute Joe Aribo in his side's 2-1 win over Hibernian in a Scottish Premiership clash at Ibrox Stadium on Sunday.

Trailing 1-0 after seven minutes, the Light Blues showed character to come from behind to register a win courtesy of second half strikes from Kemar Roofe and Alfredo Morelos.

Joe Aribo and international teammate Leon Balogun kept their places in the starting line-up while Calvin Bassey dropped to the bench after a poor performance in the defeat to Sparta Prague in the Europa League.

The former Charlton Athletic midfielder has been overused by Gerrard this season, making fifteen starts from a possible sixteen in all competitions.

Though Aribo was walking a disciplinary tightrope after receiving a yellow card for a soft challenge on a Hibs player in the 26th minute, Gerrard has insisted that he substituted the Nigerian in the 79th minute due to fatigue.

Speaking to Rangers TV, the former Liverpool captain explained : "Joe Aribo and Glen Kamara you have to offload them because they looked jaded with the effort they put in last week, but today we flipped our formation to be
a little but more aggressive, a bit more front foot, we never waited today, we went after Hibs."

 

One of the talking points of the game came on the half our mark as Hibernian defender Ryan Porteous was shown a straight red card for an attempted leg breaking challenge on Aribo.

Gerrard had no sympathy for Porteous, saying that the Super Eagles mifielder's season would have abruptly ended if full contact was made.

Taking a close look at the red card dished out to the Hibs number 5, Gerrard said : "It's a red card 100 percent, as someone who knows a thing or two about bad tackles because I've made a few myself.

"It doesn't come much worse than that, to go in at that speed, with that force, with that height.

"If it had connected with Joe Aribo, Joe's season would have been done for sure.

"This kid done one very similar on Lassana Coulibaly a little while ago and he obviously hasn't learnt his lesson, and hopefully he learns moving forward  because he's let Jack down today, his staff and his players.

"They're 1-0 up, he can play the ball. If he wants to play the ball he can play the ball but he decides to go a foot over the ball, and he's running at some speed.

"Thankfully it wasn't full contact otherwise Joe Aribo would have been in trouble".

Ifeanyi Emmanuel