Rangers come back from goal down to beat Dundee with ten men in Premiership clash at Ibrox

Rangers have come back from a goal down to beat Dundee in the Premiership despite playing the full second half with ten men.

Cyriel Dessers, James Tavernier and Abdallah Sima got the goals that secured all three points with a 3-1 victory over Tony Docherty’s men after Amadou Bakayoko gave the visitors a lead.

The win means Philippe Clement keeps up his impressive start since replacing Michael Beale as they cut the gap at the top of the league to five points.

It was a breathless and action-packed first-half at Ibrox with four goals, two chopped off, two VAR checks, a penalty and a red card all in the space of 45 minutes.

The second half was much quieter and Clement’s side comfortably held on to their lead as Dundee failed to use the extra man to their advantage.

Rangers had their first shot at goal after only a minute when Jose Cifuentes had a speculative long-range effort that was easily saved by Trevor Carson.

But it was Dundee who took a shock lead just a few minutes later when Bakayoko put the ball past Jack Butland from a Lyle Cameron corner to make it 1-0.

The home side tried to get back on level terms quickly and had another chance soon after when Dessers sent his header over the bar.

The Nigeria forward never made the same mistake with his second chance and he fired in a deflected shot into Carson’s top corner to make it 1-1 with 20 minutes gone.

And Rangers got themselves in front after the referee was called over to the VAR for a shirt pull in the box and awarded a penalty.

James Tavernier stepped up and put it away to make it 2-1 midway through the first-half.

It was 3-1 soon after when Sima continued his good form in front of goal with a header from a corner for his 13th goal of the season since joining on loan from Brighton in the summer.

Both sides had the ball in each net again in the first-half but they were chopped off and the game remained at 3-1.

Rangers were reduced to ten-men just before the break when the referee was called over to the monitor again before producing a red card to Cifuentes.

Despite being down a man, Rangers started the second-half on the front foot and McCausland came close to increasing the lead but Carson kept it out at his near post.

The visitors tried to get themselves into the game with Cameron forcing Butland into a save before McGowan flashed a close range effort wide of the post.

Leon Balogun then had a goal-bound shot cleared off the line as the game entered the last 15 minutes.

Clement has now won nine of his first 12 games in all competitions, drawing the other three.