Ped felt ashamed after Old Firm loss
PEDRO Caixinha has admitted he felt “ashamed” after the 2-0 loss Rangers suffered at the hands of Celtic in the William Hill Scottish Cup semi-final at Hampden on Sunday.
Caixinha attended the Ibrox club’s annual Player of the Year dinner along with his squad after his debut in the Glasgow derby match had ended in defeat.
However, the Portuguese coach, whose side take on their city rivals for the sixth time this season in a Ladbrokes Premiership match at home on Saturday, has promised there will be a stark improvement.
“We didn’t have the passion that this club is giving to us,” he told Rangers TV. “After the match we went to the Player of the Year dinner and I was feeling ashamed because I couldn’t give the fans the same passion as I was receiving there.
“We prepare the team to be aggressive and we want the team to be aggressive in a good way for the whole game, you can’t even have 45 seconds where you are not focused.”
Caixinha said he had spent the week attempting to identify what went wrong in the semi-final and inject greater urgency into his side’s play – both in defence and in attack – to ensure there is an improved performance on Saturday.
“I used the day off on Monday to look at the game and we analysed the game on Tuesday with the players,” he said. “We came to the conclusion that normally we have two ways of seeing one plan.
“If it is a bad plan and everybody believes in it and tries to execute it then maybe it can become a good plan. When it is a brilliant plan, but you don’t execute it, then you will never know so what we expect now is to have a good plan with good execution. We have to have co-ordination about the ideas so everybody acts at the same time in the same direction.”