Captain unimpressed Tavernier admits Rangers failed to hit levels in Aberdeen

JAMES TAVERNIER admits Rangers didn’t hit their levels in the final third as they were held by Aberdeen at Pittodrie.

Ianis Hagi had the champions on course for a crucial Premiership win as he netted midway through the first half.

But a Lewis Ferguson penalty – after a handball from Alfredo Morelos – would deny Giovanni van Bronckhorst another league win as Rangers saw their lead at the top of the table reduced to four points.

The Gers return to action on Friday night when they begin in their Scottish Cup campaign at home to Stirling Albion.

And Tavernier knows they must improve in front of goal after a frustrating outing that saw them stumble in the title race.

Tavernier said: “Disappointed to leave here without the three points we wanted.

“I felt at times in the game we showed promise in our attack. But in the second half we didn’t create the chances we wanted to.

“Obviously we conceded a penalty, which I thought was a bit harsh.

“But it’s been given and it’s then obviously a little bit of an uphill battle when Ryan gets sent off. But I thought the lads showed character to see out the game.

“Just our levels, we didn’t get the combinations we were wanting. We just weren’t at the level we were in the first half.

“So we need to look back on that during the week and just improve and move on from this.

“We came here for three points. We’re disappointed to leave with one but we didn’t lose the game so we’ll just move on from it.

“Well we got one point. It’s not what we wanted but that’s football and we’ve just got to move on.

“We’ve got another game on Friday and we’ve just got to get back to our levels that we know we can reach, creating those chances, being really dangerous and try to keep clean sheets.

“I just thought it was unlucky but we’ll move on from this.”