Football: St.Mirren 2 - 2 Rangers

Rangers are without a win in five matches.

They drew with St Mirren on the day that Celtic officially clinched the Scottish Premiership title.

Author - Mark Lee

The Rangers' interim head coach had urged his side to respond to the hurt of failing to mount a title challenge by winning their final five games.

Despite Cyriel Dessers and Nicolas Raskin putting Rangers ahead in each half, they were quickly pegged back twice by Mark O'Hara and Conor McMenamin.

A closer look at what happened

St Mirren made just one enforced change to their starting line-up following the sale of Toyosi Olusanya to MLS side Houston Dynamo, with Mikael Mandron brought in to lead the attack.

Rangers, meanwhile, made four changes after their Europa League defeat to Athletic Bilbao. Leon Balogun, Ridvan Yilmaz, Vaclav Cerny and Ianis Hagi all dropped out, with Robin Propper, Clinton Nsiala, Bailey Rice and Hamza Igamane coming into the side.

It was the visitors who created the first opportunity of the afternoon, with Cyriel Dessers' snapshot comfortably turned away by Zach Hemming. Dessers then missed a golden chance to open the scoring, latching onto Mohamed Diomande's pass before blasting over the crossbar. Although he appeared to be offside, the flag stayed down.

St Mirren had created little of note but should have taken the lead after 29 minutes. Rangers goalkeeper Liam Kelly mishit a clearance straight to Mandron, who somehow failed to find the net with the goal at his mercy.

Rangers punished that miss four minutes before the break. Nicolas Raskin’s clever reverse pass found Dessers, who took a touch before drilling the ball low past Hemming.

St Mirren, though, were level by half-time. A long throw from Killian Phillips caused confusion in the Rangers defence and Mark O’Hara seized on the loose ball to fire home beyond Kelly.

Seven minutes after the restart, Rangers restored their advantage. Diomande broke forward and picked out Raskin, who was allowed to drive to the edge of the penalty area before finishing into the corner.

READ MORE: Aberdeen 1 - 0 Hibernian

St Mirren responded with two substitutions and one almost had an immediate impact. Phillips flicked the ball through to Roland Idowu, but the substitute was denied by Kelly, who saved with his leg.

There was a brief VAR check for a possible penalty after Nsiala's challenge on Marcus Fraser, though the officials ruled that the contact had occurred outside the box.

St Mirren continued to press and were rewarded after 75 minutes. Declan John swung in a cross from the left and Conor McMenamin was on hand to convert from close range.

This has been another successful season for St.Mirren

That St Mirren went into this game looking to defeat Rangers three times in a single league campaign. They hadn't done this since the 1979-80 campaign. 

The fact they were almost disappointed they didn't achieve this is a huge indication of how well Stephen Robinson's side have done this season.

This St Mirren success has been built on hardworking players throughout their squad and they come to the forefront again to secure another impressive point.

European qualification might be out of reach now but 6th place with their budget is still a fantastic achievement. They will still be hoping to end the campaign on a high.