Redemption for Candeias as Rangers have to find extra gear

● Portuguese winger atones for horror miss by giving his side lead in overtime after Thistle grab last-gasp leveller

RANGERS

3

Pena 55, Candeias 94; Herrera 99

After extra time If there has been the feeling that nothing has quite been working out for Rangers manager Pedro Caixinha, his side changed that and allowed him to breathe a little easier after a League Cup quarterfinal victory at Partick Thistle last night .

Extra time was required after Rangers squandered a winning position, and questions were asked of their mettle when Kris Doolan rifled in the equaliser with seconds of normal time remaining.

However, within eight minutes of the restart, Caixinha’s men had removed any doubt about the outcome in blistering fashion. They did so thanks to two of Caixinha’s summer signings coming to the fore when their team need them.

First Daniel Candeias lashed in a powerful low effort past Ryan Scully from the edge of the box in the 93rd minute.

Then the Partick keeper was beaten again when a cute back-flick by substitute Eduardo Herrera crossed the line with the help of a slight deflection.

Earlier, Carlos Pena – who has been something of a mystery man since his £2.7 million move from Mexico in the summer–lookedlikehewould be the matchwinner when he scored with a deft backwards header from a Candeias corner after 57 minutes.

Rangers were their usual mix of decent and the indifferent, meaning there was still nothing in their play to suggest that they will provide a stiff challenge to Celtic when the two teams meet on Saturday for their first clash of the season.

It might not help that experienced centre-back Bruno Alves was withdrawn with what appeared to be a knock.

A pre-match fixation with what the outcome could mean for Caixinha’s employment prospects in Scotland, and his contention that teams are more aggressive against his side than other “top teams” in the country, obscured what else was on the line.

A total of 20 major trophies have been contested since one last resided at Ibrox.

Rangers have yet to repeat the recurring trophy success they enjoyed prior to their 2012 financial meltdown and, with Celtic’s strength currently putting the title out of bounds, cups are the only likely route to ending a silverware starvation that runs to six years.

During that time, eight clubs with much smaller budgets than the Ibrox club have been trophy winners.

Last night’s quarter-final would once have been a guarantee of Rangers booking another Hampden outing.

Partick Thistle haven’t reach the last four of a national cup since they were beaten 3-0 by Rangers in the Scottish Cup at that stage in 2002 – a game in which Firhill manager Alan Archibald played.

At 39, the former defender is too young to have played the last time his team defeated Rangers, which was in 1993.

However, with the latest evidence of the flakiness of Caixinha’s men coming at Firhill just last Friday, when they needed to come from behind to salvage a 2-2 draw, there weren’t many making confident predictions about what would happen when the teams met at the venue for a second time in five days.

The straight red card shown to Chris Erskine that night was a break for Rangers that they could not fully capitalise on.

It was a result that left them without a victory this season against any side that finished in the top six of the Premiership in the last campaign.

Early on last night they looked like putting that stat to bed as they dominated against a Thistle team which again operated with a back five.

Constantly forced on to the back foot, the hosts should have taken the lead midway through the first period when keeper Scully clumsily beat out a shot by Alfredo Morelos to allow Josh Windass a scoring opportunity from close in. He squandered that by wildly scuffing his shot.

As with their previous meeting, Thistle gradually found a way in and Conor Sammon began to cause all sorts of problems, drawing a save from Jak Alnwick at his near post after side-stepping Fabio Cardoso down the inside-left channel.

With the break approaching, Alnwick again thwarted the Irishman, this time brilliantly leaping to his left to palm away a header from pointblank range.

Rangers began the second period with the same menace, and this time their pressure did yield results.

That should have happened when Morelos was one-onone with Scully at the edge of the box only for the keeper to get the slightest touch to send his low effort inches wide of the far post.

From the resultant corner, Pena provided the goal Rangers’ efforts deserved. Then