DEVASTATED TAVERNIER: DON’T LEAVE US LIKE THIS
Rangers captain pleads for Gerrard to stay at Ibrox after cup embarrassment
JAMES TAVERNIER has told Steven Gerrard the Rangers players want him to stay on as manager in the wake of the William Hill Scottish Cup defeat to Hearts that means the Ibrox club are likely to finish another season trophyless.
Gerrard admitted that he was at the lowest point of his 21-month reign and needed time to think when asked about his own future immediately after the 1-0 quarter-final loss at Tynecastle on Saturday evening.
Some of the Glasgow club’s fans would like to see the Liverpool and England great replaced and a new head coach brought in, even though he has led them through to the last 16 of the Europa League this season.
But Rangers captain Tavernier stressed that he and his team-mates have to take full responsibility for their domestic failure this season – they have also fallen 12 points behind Celtic in the Ladbrokes Premiership – and are keen for Gerrard to remain.
“We want him to be here, definitely,” he said. “He has driven the standards right up. If selected by him we have to deliver. He has given everything to the boys and we have not delivered two seasons in a row.
“We were unlucky in the League Cup final against Celtic, but we have now been knocked out in this competition in the quarterfinal for a second season.
“The league was in our hands, but we have now given ourselves a mountain to climb. We have lost it again so we are going to look at ourselves as the gaffer has given us everything.”
Tavernier, inset, added: “We are devastated. The lads are finding it hard to swallow. We have let the club down, the fans down, the gaffer down and ourselves down.
“Going from such a high during the week against a very good team to failing to answer questions at a place where we have struggled during the season.
“We have not produced a performance good enough to put us into the semifinal. This has happened two years in a row now as we were knocked out by Aberdeen last year. It has happened again this year and it is hard to take.”
Right-back Tavernier, who helped Rangers beat Braga 1-0 in Portugal last Wednesday night to reach the Europa League last 16, confessed he is clueless why the Ibrox club’s form and results have been so bad in 2020.
However, he accepted the Rangers players didn’t stand up to the challenge that
Hearts presented them on Saturday and vowed to rectify the problem and get back to winning ways – for Gerrard and the supporters.
“I don’t know what it comes down to,” he said. “We proved we can do it midweek, but in the second part of the season we have lacked consistency levels. Since the break we have let ourselves down too many times and Saturday was another one.
“It was clear as day the mental strength wasn’t there.
We didn’t back it up with a performance. There is not much I can say on that.
“We can only show we have it by winning games. Clearly against Hearts we didn’t show it enough. In the past we have shown it in certain games. When Hearts sniffed blood from the get-go we struggled to deal with it.
“The first half of the season, teams dropped off us and we were scoring five or six goals. But then we come to the second part of the season. We are not gritty enough and able to see out games.”
Tavernier continued: “We knew what was coming. You need to grab it with both hands and respond to it. But I don’t think we tested the keeper once in the entire game.
“I don’t think he even had a shot to save. It was not good enough from the team in general.
“I know all the boys are devastated. It is something we don’t mean to do.
“But we really need to look hard at ourselves. We need to sit down together and see what the right answers are.”