A FURIOUS Steven Gerrard last night slaughtered his Rangers players following their 1-1 draw at Dundee insisting some had blown their last chance to show they were good enough to be in his team.
And he insisted that a similar performance away to Rapid Vienna on Thursday would end his side’s European campaign.
Gerrard made six changes from the Aberdeen defeat but was rewarded with a poor all-round performance against a Dundee team which played most off the match a man down, and it was clear he’s had enough with many of them.
Rangers did have a perfectly good goal from Kyle Lafferty disallowed, which the manager tried to speak about with match delegate Jim Neil who bizarrely didn’t allow him the chance to talk about the incident.
Gerrard, however, didn’t attempt to use that as any sort of excuse for what was one of the worst displays of his time at Ibrox.
He said: “The last two performances have been really poor and I take responsibility for that. Seven days ago we were top and it’s looking like we have Rangers players who can handle the responsibility of being a Rangers player.
“The last two performances don’t look like us and the team I’m trying to build. Individuals are not stepping up and playing at a level that is acceptable.
“I just don’t think we’ve done the things that have got us a lot of praise. The performances are out of character and individuals are putting in bad performances.
“We started the game really poorly and Kenny Miller – who we know really well – ran us ragged from the start to the time he left the pitch.
“The decision went our way with the sending off and Andy Halliday puts in a fantastic free-kick and we should have then played with our brains and made the pitch big and passed and the chances would have come.
“Instead we did the exact opposite and complicated it, we took too many touches, made bad decisions all over the pitch and I’m, very, very surprised with our last two performances because I haven’t seen that since I came in.
“It won’t happen again (making so many changes). People knock on your door, people shake their head when they’re not in the team, people are disappointed. That’s fine, that’s football.
“But when you are given your chance, go and back it up, go and perform, give me a problem or a headache.
“I think it’s pretty easy, pretty straightforward for me now. I know the players I can trust, and it’s a reality check today that we’re not good enough to make five or six changes.
“It should make my job easier going forward because there should be less knocks at the door. If players are honest with themselves and watch that performance back I don’t really think they’ve got a leg to stand on.
“But I welcome the knocks because I’ve got all the evidence and the ammunition to maybe show them why they’re not in the team in the future.”
“We’ll see what Thursday brings but if we perform anything like the last two games we’ll be out of Europe on Thursday night.”
When asked about Lafferty’s ‘goal’, Gerrard said: “It looked okay to me. The official delegate has asked me if I had anything to say about the officials but before I could open my mouth he walked past me and left.
“I can’t say any more or I would get into trouble.
“He said ‘was everything all right?’ and woooof – he was off! I’d have asked him what do you think of our second goal? And I’d have liked an answer. He must have plans because he was gone sharpish.
Dundee are off the bottom of the Premiership for the first time this season and that’s now a run of four games without a defeat for the Dens Park side and their delighted manager Jim McIntyre.
He said: “I thought the boys showed great resolve, great organisation. At half-time we said to them you will get a counter attack and I thought we could have made more of that one at the end if we were a bit more direct.
"But having said that I didn’t think Rangers cut us open that much. Jack Hamilton had one or two saves. We knew we would have to give up the wider areas and defend a lot of crosses because were nice and narrow."
Asked about the red card given to Nathan Ralph on 18 minutes, McIntyre said: “I have watched it again and the referee told me it was for denying a clear goalscoring opportunity.
“So that is going to be appealed because Andy Boyle is round on the cover so it’s definitely not that. That was disappointing but I would rather talk about how good the players were, rather than that decision.”
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