Bojan Miovski's Late Goal Sparks Rangers' Hope Against Celtic

Bojan Miovski took four touches to change the mood of an entire stadium.

As stoppage time ticked into view at Ibrox and another Rangers attack broke down, the soundtrack was turning ugly. Boos rolled down from the stands. Hundreds of home supporters had already trudged towards the exits, fed up with a second half that had drifted from anxious to aimless.

Then Miovski arrived.

A sharp movement, a neat finish, and the ball was in the St Mirren net. The clock showed 90 minutes. The noise flipped from fury to euphoria in an instant. For the remaining four minutes and change, Ibrox roared like it was hosting a cup final, not scraping through a league fixture by a single goal.

Relief doesn’t usually look that wild. But Rangers knew exactly what they had just avoided.

A season tilting on one swing of the boot

At almost the same moment in Perth, Celtic were closing out a 1-0 win over St Johnstone to preserve their perfect league start. Had Rangers failed to find a way through, Derek McInnes’ side would have woken up seven points behind the champions after only six games.

Instead, the gap remains just about manageable, the mood just about positive, the narrative just about under control as they head into a season-defining fortnight against their greatest rivals.

They host Martin O'Neill's Celtic in Sunday’s Premier Sports Cup quarter-final, then travel to Celtic Park in the Premiership a week later. Without Miovski’s late intervention, they would have gone into that double-header with their sails shredded. Now, at least, there is wind in them again.

The numbers offer McInnes some protection. Since a damaging home defeat to Hibernian last month that intensified scrutiny on his position and came on the back of European elimination, Rangers have responded with five unbeaten at Ibrox, winning the last four.

“If you strip it back, six wins out of seven, four straight wins,” the former Heart of Midlothian head coach could rightfully point out. “We have not lost a goal apart from an own goal.”

On paper, that reads like a team quietly settling into a groove. On grass, it still looks like a work in progress.

From battering to brink

McInnes was adamant his side merited the three points.

“I thought we got what we deserved, granted St Mirren had a 20-minute period in the second half when they were better than us,” he told BBC Scotland. “They played with a bit more belief and came after us and we were guilty of so many poor decisions.

“But I thought the performance for the first hour was really strong, particularly the first half, where we absolutely battered St Mirren.”

That first-half dominance was real. Rangers swarmed, pressed, and carved out chance after chance. The aggression off the ball, the intensity in their running, the constant probing in the final third – it all suggested a team edging towards the version McInnes wants.

The problem? At 0-0, dominance without a goal becomes a dangerous game.

“I was really pleased with the performance,” McInnes said, “but at 0-0, as an opposition manager, when you've been put through the ringer and you know you haven't been punished for it, it does give you power and belief that you can get something from it.”

St Mirren sensed exactly that in the second half. They grew, they pressed higher, they forced Rangers into errors. The Ibrox crowd felt the shift and let their team know it.

McInnes understood the outpouring when Miovski finally broke them.

“Last-minute winners are great for players, coaches and fans,” he said. “We'd rather not be in that position, but credit to the players for keeping going.

“There are obviously loads we have to improve on, but we have to meanwhile keep winning and we have to keep improving if we are to achieve anything this season.”

Praise and warning from the stands

Former Rangers midfielder Andy Halliday saw the same split personality in the performance.

“I thought in the first half Rangers were really good,” he told BBC Radio Scotland's Sportsound. “They have shown a vast improvement off the ball over the last three or four games.

“They played with a lot of aggression, a lot of intensity and they've created an abundance of chances in the first half as well, but they just don't seem to have that ruthlessness in the top end of the pitch.”

Where McInnes saw a 20-minute St Mirren spell after the break, Halliday’s view was harsher.

“I don't particularly agree with Derek McInnes' assessment of the second half. I thought St Mirren had much more than a 20-minute period. Rangers just lost all control and got a bit desperate.

“They got a wee bit too forceful too early, but take nothing away from them – the forcefulness worked in the end with the direct ball getting them the goal.”

That lack of control, that slide from patience into panic, will not survive against Celtic. The aggression McInnes has introduced off the ball is a positive step, but the absence of a clinical edge in the box remains a glaring issue.

Strikers down, an unlikely saviour up

McInnes’ search for a reliable scoring touch has been complicated by injuries in the one area of the pitch he could least afford them.

Youssef Chermiti and summer signing Lawrence Shankland, who began the campaign as the preferred striking options, are both sidelined long term. Just as Daisuke Yokota was beginning to settle, news landed that the Japanese winger now needs groin surgery only weeks after arriving.

Into that chaos stepped Miovski, a player who had slipped so far down the pecking order he looked destined to leave.

Having dropped to fifth-choice, he suddenly finds himself the man of the moment.

“It just shows you what football is like and how quickly it can change,” Halliday said. “It looked like he was out of the picture two or three weeks ago and it looked like he was going to be on his way in the transfer window, but he's come up with a massive goal.”

Halliday still does not expect him to start against Celtic, but added: “He's certainly more in the picture after a goal like that.”

McInnes has consistently leaned on Ryan Naderi and Kevin Kelsy, the big-money summer arrival from Portland Timbers. Yet the manager has long been aware of Miovski’s numbers.

“It is just typical of football that a few weeks ago Bojan would have seemed so far out of it,” McInnes said.

“But, when you actually strip it back, his goals per minutes in the Premiership is up there with Lawrence Shankland.

“So I was delighted when I inherited someone like Bojan who knows his way about the Scottish Premiership and is a goalscorer and, played in the right manner and with the right partner, is capable of scoring goals.”

The question now is simple and unavoidable. With Celtic looming and Rangers still hunting a ruthless edge, can the man who dragged them out of the darkness in stoppage time be trusted to do it when the stakes rise even higher?