BOSS MIGHT GO IF SLUMP CONTINUES — HALLIDAY

ANDY HALLIDAY has warned his Rangers team-mates that their alarming slump in form is pushing Steven Gerrard towards the exit door. A 1-0 home defeat to Hamilton on Wednesday left the Ibrox club 13 points adrift of Celtic and on the brink of a full-blown crisis. Rangers were just two points off the pace with a game in hand after winning at Parkhead for the first time in a decade on December 29 but their domestic ambitions have since been reduced to dust following an extraordinary loss of form. Defeat to the Premiership’s bottom club compounded earlier losses to Hearts and Kilmarnock and draws with Aberdeen and St Johnstone. A last realistic chance of silverware was also surrendered in the Scottish Cup defeat at Tynecastle last weekend. Despite Gerrard reaffirming his commitment to the club earlier this week, back-toback defeats have intensified the speculation surrounding

his future in Glasgow. Lifelong supporter Halliday, an unused sub against Hamilton, feels that situation will go on for as long as the squad continue to underperform. ‘We’ve said since the manager walked through the door that he’s black and white and his honesty is refreshing because that’s all you ask for in a manager,’ said Halliday. ‘If you asked every player in that squad they would tell you the one thing they don’t want to happen is for the gaffer to leave this football club. ‘And for that to happen we need to buck up our ideas quickly because we’re the ones letting him and the club down. ‘His disappointment filters through to us because we’ve let him and the fans down again.’ The latest setback saw the few remaining supporters within Ibrox turn on the players — with reserves of patience now clearly exhausted. Warning the misfiring squad that the clock is now ticking on all their futures, Halliday added: ‘Everyone should be fearing for their future, it’s as simple as that. ‘At a big club you’re judged on results and performances you put in on a week-to-week basis. ‘It’s been ten weeks now and that’s not a blip — that’s a complete turn in fortunes. ‘If you’re not performing for ten weeks then your position in the team comes under question. ‘Far too many of us have underperformed for a long period of time, so fans are entitled to have a go.’ Already despondent after the cup exit to Hearts, Gerrard admitted the loss to Hamilton left him at a new low. Struggling to grasp how the team have contrived to surrender the promising position they enjoyed as they headed to Dubai for the winter break, Halliday said: ‘The dressing room was one of the lowest since I’ve been here and I’ve had my fair share of low moments at the football club. ‘It’s especially more difficult when we put ourselves in a good position going into the winter break and for it to fall apart so quickly is bitterly disappointing. I can’t put my finger on what has gone wrong. All I can do, and I know it’s empty words, is on behalf of all the players offer our complete and sincere apologies. ‘The performances since the winter break have been absolutely miles off it and we can’t put our finger on it. ‘For five or six months we looked so dangerous and we’re still in European competition and performing really well there but, domestically, it’s a completely different Rangers.’ Halliday feels the weight of expectation may simply be weighing too heavily on some of his Ibrox team-mates. Admitting he feared the worst the moment David Moyo scored in the 56th minute, he continued: ‘It’s a special club and a heavy jersey and right now we’re not filling it. For six months the players were doing ever so well and any task flung their way they dealt with, but just now we look shot of confidence. ‘Hamilton deserved to take something from the game but my feeling once they went 1-0 up was that I feared for us because our confidence looked shot and I didn’t see it turning quickly. ‘A couple of chances didn’t fall our way but, regardless of that, we didn’t deserve to win the game. ‘We looked too desperate to get the goal and lost our shape out of possession. I lost count of the amount of times we put a ball into Hamilton’s box and when they cleared it a Hamilton player picked it up. ‘That’s because we were too desperate. We lost our shape and discipline and too many boys were flooding the box trying to get that goal. ‘Sometimes you need to be a bit more patient and you can sustain more attacks and make it difficult for Hamilton to get out their half.’ Dismayed at how sharply European form has contrasted with domestic performances, Halliday said: ‘I thought Braga would kickstart our season and put in a positive push for the remainder of it. But we followed that up with two extremely disappointing performances.’