Derek Johnstone: Oduwa tackle was a leg-breaker and red card but bottler Dallas blew it

Rangers fans are up in arms over remarks made by the Almondvale club's manager which stated that Kieran Gibbons should be spared harsh criticism for his terrible early tackle on Nathan Oduwa because he is a young Scottish player and the Rangers winger is an Englishman on a one-year loan.

Mark got himself into a muddle over that entire matter without doubt. I think he realises now that he was silly and he has issued an apology.

He was never going to have a go at his own players and I am sure, having studied the available footage, that he will privately agree that it should have been a red card. I am not one for demanding that people be hammered for things they have said.

It was Dallas who disappointed me more than anything. That is the first time I have seen him live and I just thought he was poor in everything that he did.

His assistants didn't help him either, but he let things go in the first 10 or 15 minutes when tackles were flying in. I may be wrong, but I don't even think he spoke to Gibbons after that foul on Oduwa far less consider sending him off the field.

Declan Gallagher did pick up a booking a little later, but what sent the Rangers support off a cliff was his decision to yellow-card Martyn Waghorn for absolutely nothing just before the break.

He never had a handle on the game. He was never in control of what was going on.

Perhaps I just caught him on a really bad day, but I can only judge him on what I witnessed in midweek and I thought he was really, really poor in his decision-making.

There was a challenge in that game after 12 seconds or so that was a red card. Full stop.

When you see a tackle like that, whether in the first minute or the last minute, it is a red card every day of the week. It was a leg-breaker.

Watching the incident in slow-motion, you can clearly see Oduwa's leg and ankle bending. I will never know how he did not suffer a break.

I don't think it was deliberate. I just think Gibbons had committed himself when Oduwa had got away from him, but it was horrendous. Oduwa could have suffered a really serious injury.

If you allow him to run at you, he will go create havoc and I can understand why teams want him closed down. There were another couple of nasty challenges on him during the first half the other night before he hobbled off at the interval, though.

He did well to last to half-time, being perfectly honest.

Referees will tell you that you are setting yourself up for trouble if you start throwing cards around in the first minute of the game. He should judge what is happening there and then, though.

If he was brave enough, he would have sent Gibbons off and I think that may well have stopped a lot of the hard challenges going in. I am not saying it was only Livingston throwing their weight about. There were some tough tackles from Rangers players as well, but the referee has to adhere to the rules.

I would like to think that the referee supervisor in the stand will have laid down the law to him after the game.

The entire team of officials was poor. The referee should be the one who misses a few games and is taken to task. He was bad for both sides in the game.

Mark Warburton, the Rangers manager, stated after the match that he felt Oduwa and other players have to be given greater protection by our officials. It is impossible to disagree. We need all good, technical players to be given the opportunity to showcase their skills.

After the outrageous piece of skill he showed against Alloa, when he was criticised for flicking the ball over Colin Hamilton, I made it clear that we should regard it as something wonderful that we have a talent such as Oduwa in Scotland.

Lots of players can do that kind of thing in training, but they don't do it when it counts. He has the confidence to try these things and pull them off.

Don't get me wrong. If I was playing against someone like that, a real threat, I would think you'd have to get a few challenges in early. You know that kind of player is going to cause you problems and you have got to try to soften them up.

It applies at all levels of football. Oduwa is just quicker than most people and can go past defenders as if they aren't there.

The referees are there to help protect them, though. They have to do their job.

45 years on...and the moment that changed my life forever

IT is quite something to think that it is 45 years ago tomorrow that, aged just 16, I scored the goal that defeated Celtic 1-0 in the final of the League Cup.

Every time I look in the record books, it says that there were just over 106,000 people at Hampden that afternoon. That just cannot be right.

There must have been closer to 487,000 there because every person of my age or older, whether a Rangers or a Celtic supporter, tells me that they were at the game. I still hear folk talking about that goal regularly.

I might be 61 years of age now, but certain things really do remain vivid in your memory and that match, my second for Rangers, is right up there with the European Cup-Winners’ Cup Final of 1972.

October, 24, 1970, was the day that made me as a Rangers player.

Until then, I am sure 90 per cent or more of the Rangers fans who were on the terracing would not have recognised me on the street.

I lived in Dundee at the time. I took the 7.40am train to Glasgow every day, went on the subway to Copland Road and then walked along Edmiston Drive and in through the front door of Ibrox.

I did that for about two years until it was decided that it was better for me to move through to Glasgow to a place in Bolton Drive in Mount Florida.

It made sense. When we did double training sessions in summer, I was getting home at 7pm and having to get back up at 6am to get ready for the train journey again.

I was told the day before that I was playing and given half-a-dozen tickets for my family. I remember thinking that would get my brothers in, but what about the other 350 relatives?

I live close to Billy McNeill and he still calls me a lucky big so-and-so for getting up there in the box with him and scoring the goal. So many people remember it and it is nice after all these years.

Nick a goal and show you’re up to the Mark...

LIFE at Rangers is proving difficult for Nicky Clark and that is unlikely to change as the club seeks to bring in new players in preparation for a return to the top flight.

That is why he must continue to do what he did against Livingston in the quarter-final of the Petrofac Training Cup and make the most of chances that come his way.

He replaced Nathan Oduwa at half-time and went on to score the winning goal. He has got to come on and be an impact player and it was a compliment to him that Martyn Waghorn was moved wide to let him play through the middle.

He only has a short space of time, though, to convince Mark Warburton that he can be a valuable player in the longer term. If Rangers do go up, there will be reinforcements in the summer. There may even be a need for a taller striker to come in right now.

Clark, though, is the type who can come on and change a game. His future is in his own hands. He has to score goals every time he plays.

He has to send a message to the manager every time he plays. Coming on and just being ordinary is not going to help him.