Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
No pitch battle for Gers boss
STEVEN GERRARD refused to point the finger of blame at Motherwell after seeing Rangers bogged down during a Fir Park turf battle.
The Lanarkshire outfit usually boast one of the best playing surfaces in the country but Well’s pitch was far from its best on Sunday when Rangers visited.
Gerrard revealed his team were warned in advance that it would not be up to its usual high standard after taking a battering from the elements in recent weeks.
And the Light Blues boss was making no excuses as he insisted the slippery surface had nothing to do with his team’s laboured first-half display.
Gers went in a goal down at the break and required a Cedric Itten header with 18 minutes left to rescue a point.
Gerrard said: “We had an email off Motherwell to be fair a few days ago talking about the standard of the pitch but we knew that at this stage of the season you’re not going to get perfect pitches.
“Ibrox isn’t perfect at the moment, so it is what it is.
“I don’t think the pitch was to blame for our first 45 minutes because you can’t blame a pitch for being passive and having no quality.
“(The email) was just to give us an early indication about the pitch and that if the weather turned we could have an issue, and also to say Motherwell had had to use it for training and it was not in the usual condition.
“It’s normally a fantastic pitch here.
“It was a heads-up that if we had a period of weather that was bad the game could be 50-50.
“Thankfully the game went ahead.
“We appreciated the heads-up but it’s nothing for Motherwell to be ashamed of because you see all the pitches are like this.
“You saw Hibs’ pitch on Sportscene, Celtic Park, Ibrox, I think a lot of people are having issues with pitches because of the weather we’ve had and this stage of the season.”