I’m angry and I’m frustrated and I have to find a way to cope with it. I hope our fans stay with us but they need a lift. We need to lift Ibrox, we need to lift the crowd and we need to lift ourselves
Graeme Murty maintained a veneer of calm on the surface – but the glassy, staring eyes were a dead giveaway of just how hard he was suppressing the
rage below.
Interim, caretaker, stand-in, call him what you want. In a few days, a few weeks, whenever his board realise it has already been too long, he’ll slip back unnoticed to his day job developing his club’s under-20 talent. But while he’s front and centre, don’t mistake decorum for acceptance. The 43-year-old Rangers coach has standards and a reputation he cares about. Standards which a r en’ t be ing uphe ld a nd a reputation that is currently being trashed by a squad not of his making. He has every right to be raging at them – but he insists telling them will hurt more than it will help. And that’s something he’s not prepared to do, just to vent his own spleen. So while everyone else is asking how the players are going to bounce back from a seventh team out of 10 taking points from them before they face a double-header with Aberdeen this week, how is HE staving off the despondency? “It’s a good question,” Murty said after the 2-1 defeat to Dundee on Friday night, “and when I have the answer I will let you know. “I’m desperately disappointed. I’m angry and frustrated and I have to find a way to cope so that come my next opportunity to work with the players, I give them what they need for Wednesday. “There’s no point in feeling sorry for myself, what happens has happened. We have to be man enough to accept it and move forward and get ready for a big game. If we’re not man enough we need to have a long, hard look at ourselves.
“I’m doing my utmost to control the fury because it can be very destructive both to myself, to the players, and to my relationship with the players. So it has to be controlled and directed and put into energy to make us better. Because that just wasn’t acceptable.”
Asked if he shouldn’t just vent his fury on the players, make them clearly aware of their failings, he shrugged and said: “There’s no point. That wouldn’t be professional.
“It would devolve into something personal and destructive and it wouldn’t add anything to the group.
“It would just be me making myself feel better by making a player feel worse and I’m not prepared to do that.”
The discipline of the Rangers fans to withhold their ire may not match Murty’s if they don’t raise their game against the Dons at Ibrox on Wednesday night.
But the coach said: “I hope they stay with us but we need to give them a lift. We need to lift Ibrox, we need to lift the crowd, we need to lift ourselves.
“Whoever’s in the post, whoever’s on the pitch, they need to be man enough and shou lder the responsibility of being better than we were against Dundee – and I include myself in that.
“That’s twice we’ve had the chance to establish ourselves in second place. But we haven’t done it for a multitude of reasons. There’s no point talking about what could’ve been or should’ve been. The reality is that’s what we’ve done and we know we need to do better.”
Murty, however, was at pains to point out that his players do care and they are hurting, even if it’s not manifesting itself on the park.
He said: “Don’t think I’m the only person angry and frustrated. They are in the dressing-room. They are as angry. And they don’t have an avenue to vent. They need to find Wednesday as their avenue to possibly start to put things right.
“And to show our support, who are at the top level, that we deserve to be at this football club.
“I think they’ve got it in them. I see things. I see f lashes in it. I see opportunities to go and win games. I see flashes of quality.
“But sustaining it is the key and the very best Rangers teams had a relentless reputation to go and go and go. We must dig deep to go find that within ourselves.
“If they haven’t got it in them to handle the support’s expectations then we will find out. I hope they have, I expect that they have.
“You need big shoulders to fill a Rangers shirt and the players know that. They are desperate to do well, trust me.
“But what we need to do is make sure that regardless of expectations or past reputation, Wednesday gets sorted out. And we do it properly.”
The former Scotland full-back, despite only being in temporary charge, has never shirked away from shouldering the responsibility for results himself. He did so again on Friday night, claiming he had to improve as much as his players.
Asked how, he confessed: “I have to give the players more, I have to give them greater clarity. I have to give them something different.
“Although we had good opportunities, I will be analysing my per formance, what changes I made. Even though we did the change and got a reward straight away.
“Do I need to do something else? I am always ref lective in that way and saying I want to get better. You are operating at the very top level here.
“This club deserves only the very best. I want to be that. If my practice wasn’t that then I need to change and I need to get better.”
Rangers could have Bruno Alves back for the Dons clash, while Alfredo Morelos faces a late check on rib damage.
I’m doing my utmost to control the fury because it can be very destructive