Stevie G’s history boys draw a blank
RANGERS 0 SPARTAK MOSCOW 0
STEVEN GERRARD last night admitted his frustration at not sinking Spartak Moscow is a mark of Rangers’ huge progress in Europe.
The Ibrox gaffer felt his team could have had more after being held by the Russians.
Gerrard’s side dominated the first period and had gilt-edged opportunities after the break to secure a priceless success.
However, despite the disappointment Rangers stayed top of Group G by virtue of the
head-to-head away point in Villarreal.
And having broken the record of Walter Smith’s 1992-93 side by extending their unbeaten record in continental competition to 11 matches this term, Gerrard pointed to clear evidence of the strides made by the club since the shambolic loss to Progres Niederkorn last season.
The Gers boss believes his troops deserved plenty of credit for their efforts.
He said: “I feel very proud of the team in general. To find out if we avoided defeat we would create a bit of history, that is always a bonus as far as I am concerned.
“It is a nice thing for people to talk about and the players certainly deserve praise having come from where they were 12 months ago, losing against a team from Luxembourg.
“We have come on leaps and bounds and I would certainly have signed for being top of the group at this stage. I would have signed up for that on day one.
“We have got five points alongside Villarreal and three games to go, so there is a lot of hard work and big challenges ahead. “The job has become a little bit more difficult because we never got the breakthrough but there is still loads of football to play and big games. I am really excited going forward and the players are disappointed they didn’t take maximum points, so that’s a positive for me. “It does show how far we’ve come. We can’t expect to win every single game, we can’t expect to blow teams away, especially teams of this calibre. “They’ve made a change at Spartak because they are a big club and have standards themselves. They expect to win and be consistent. “I said before the game we have huge respect for this team and for us to dominate for most of the game aparet from 20 minutes at the start of the second half is very pleasing.
“But we go away a tad frustrated we haven’t taken maximum points because we did want that control in the group before we went away.”
Gerrard refused to have a pop at Dutch referee Kevin Blom for turning down a penalty claim for a foul on sub Eros Grezda but couldn’t disguise his regret about the Albanian’s missed late chance.
Grezda blazed a clear opening to win over in stoppage time and the boss said: “It was just that little bit of magic or last bit of quality we needed.
“We did enough to marginally win the game, maybe. We played very well for 45 minutes, we lost control for 10 or 15 minutes in the second half.
“Then we came strong into the game again for the final part. We always felt our fitness might be the difference in the final stages.
“We asked them at halftime if they could create that moment which gives us the breakthrough. We created the moment but just couldn’t finish it off.
“I am not going to speak about the officials. There is a possibility it (the penalty) could have been given, especially at Ibrox.
“Sometimes you get them. There was certainly contact. Whether it was a penalty is up for debate.
“We are not going to point fingers. We have got to look at ourselves. We played well and created good enough chances to win the game 1-0 but we never had that final part.”