Brought to the Boyle

Goldson feels Rangers have lost hunger as Hibs win semi

CONNOR GOLDSON questioned Rangers’ hunger and admitted new manager Giovanni van Bronckhorst needs to ignite a spark within a misfiring squad after their defeat to Hibernian.

Van Bronckhorst watched on from the stands as interim boss David McCallum oversaw a shambolic 3-1 loss at Hampden that saw their Premier Sports Cup campaign come to a premature end.

The Dutchman will take charge at Ibrox this morning as he officially gets down to business after being named as Steven Gerrard’s successor last week.

Goldson refused to blame the managerial situation for a wretched Rangers showing as he made a stark admission about the mentality of the champions following their Premiership title win last term.

“Not at all,” Goldson said when asked if the performance was down to circumstances at Ibrox. “The staff have been brilliant and they have covered everything this week. We have let ourselves down.*

“Players don’t follow instructions, the first two goals are from a corner and people are in the wrong positions. “We worked on that yesterday and from a throw in there are people in the wrong positions.

“We can’t blame coaches as they give us the information to do our job and players don’t want to take that on board. Then we are two goals down and they score a third goal and the game is over.

“We can be inside at half time and say ‘believe in ourselves, blah, blah, blah but the game’s over as we are three goals down and three-one down at half time. It’s nowhere near good enough and nothing to do with them [the coaches].

“We know that the new manager was here today and you would hope that players would want to impress but after that performance we need a change. We need a spark as I don’t want to say this but I feel that we have lost a bit of hunger.

“All of a sudden we are champions and we don’t need to work as hard, which is wrong.

“I feel that it’s crept in all season, we haven’t been good enough the whole of the season so far. Hopefully the new manager can come in and give us as park .”