I’ll take my fair share of the blame for loss, says manager

not at it. I expected a lot more. To win against any good team, especially in the Old Firm, you’ve got to have the majority of players at it.

“There was really only Jon Flanagan who can be proud of his performance. We can’t expect to beat a good team or win an Old Firm of the majority of players are off.

“But when we analyse where we are big picture we are four points better off than we were last year, we have qualified for Europe, we are still in the League Cup. There is a lot of positives up until a ball was kicked today.”

Gerrard started Jermain Defoe up front instead of fans’ favourite Alfredo Morelos and played central midfielder Joe Aribo wide on the left and Rangers failed to trouble the Celtic goal in the first half.

“I went with freshness,” he said. “I went with Jermain Defoe. I picked the same team, besides Joe Aribo, that did the job so effectively eight weeks ago [in a 2-0 win at Ibrox back in May].

“I understand and get it and accept it if people want to point fingers my way. Of course I’m part of it. But I picked the team I thought could get a stranglehold on the game. I picked good players.

“The system has worked before. And I expected more from my players but it didn’t come.”

Asked if his team was too narrow in the first half with Aribo on the wing, Gerrard said: “You could say that. I’ll accept that.

“But that game plan has worked before. We were narrow twice here and won.

“Even when we made the changes to get more width with Jordan [Jones] and Sheyi [Ojo] on the pitch we didn’t create or have enough quality. Anything that comes my way then I will totally accept it.

“We gifted them a goal which is uncharacteristic in terms of my two centre backs. One [Connor Goldson] has made a mistake, one [Nikola Katic] has tried to play offside. So we actually gifted them the lead at halftime. Then we have obviously got a bigger task and a harder challenge.”