JAMES TAVERNIER has apologised to the Rangers supporters after another Hampden heartache denied them a Betfred Cup final berth.
Rangers went down 1-0 to Aberdeen on Sunday as they failed to capitalise on their possession and conceded late on to suffer a costly last four loss.
It was a sixth successive defeat at the National Stadium for the Gers, who have not won in Mount Florida since beating Celtic in the Scottish Cup semi-finals under Mark Warburton.
Rangers have now lost five semi-finals and one final on their last half a dozen trips across Glasgow as their wait for silverware goes on once again.
And captain Tavernier was frustrated with a below par performance in the final third as Lewis Ferguson headed home the winner with just 11 minutes remaining to send Derek McInnes’ side through to a final with Celtic.
He said: “It's disappointing. We're not in a final and for a club like Rangers we need to be in finals. It's obviously not good enough to concede a set-piece like that.
“They only had one corner in the second half and to concede from it was poor.
“We've not been clinical in the final third like we were on Thursday when we took a draw against Spartak. We've got to have that cutting edge in the final third.
“Our attempts on goal we expect them to be better. We expect to test the keeper a bit more.
“You obviously want to put the ball in the back of the net but we didn't create that today.
“It's a new team so for a lot of the boys this is there first defeat at Hampden. But I can only apologise on behalf of the lads today to the fans watching the game.
“It's not good enough for a Rangers team not to be in the final. We're really disappointed and we've now got a point to prove against Kilmarnock on Wednesday.
“We have scored quite a lot of goals this season but the last two games it's just that final pass that has been lacking quality.
“I can't really explain it but I know we do have the quality to create really good chances but it's just not been there for the last two games.”
Rangers went into the semi-final clash on the back of a goalless draw with Spartak Moscow in the Europa League and were again profligate in the final third against the Dons.
Boss Gerrard was without the suspended Alfredo Morelos and cup-tied Kyle Lafferty at Hampden and had to field out-of-favour forward Umar Sadiq at the head of his attack.
The Light Blues had little threat about them for most of a tight and tense clash and Tavernier knows there wasn’t enough creativity when it mattered most.
He said: “It’s obviously a massive miss to be without Alfredo. He is our talisman up front and scores a lot of goals and assists a lot of goals.
“Sadiq was a real handful for the Aberdeen defence in the first half and we tried to get him into the second half.
“But it is a big loss to be without one of our main strikers and someone who has been putting the ball in the back of the net. It’s disappointing.
“The game plan was to try and turn Aberdeen and spread their back four. We wanted to push them back and that would allow our creative players to get into space and try to influence things.
“They were man-marking all our players all over the pitch. We found it hard at sometimes during the game to lose them.
“We still created chances but we obviously have to be better when they come along.”
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