Van Bronckhorst says no excuses as he bemoans defending
Rangers manager Giovanni van Bronckhorst says there are no excuses for his team’s 2-1 defeat at home to Celtic which leaves their hopes of retaining the Premiership title hugely diminished.
But he is ready to handle any criticism which comes his way in a campaign which has seen him oversee the loss of a six-point lead over Celtic at the winter break to nowtrailing their old firm rivals by six points with just six rounds of fixtures remaining.
Rangers were unable to capitalise on taking a third minute lead through Aaron Ramsey with van Bronck horst unhappy with his team’ s defending as they conceded goals to Tom Rogic and Cameron Carter-vickers.
Van Bronckhorst introduced substitutes Fashion Sakala and Scott Arfield in a bid to salvage the situation, but rangers came up short.
“Our start couldn’t have been any better,” said van B ron ck horst, in set .“the team started on the front foot and we scored an early goal, which is what you want.
“But the two goals we gave away were gifts. it cannot happen in any match. You cannot give the first goal away like that. For me it’s unthinkable, but it happened and for the second goal we didn’t defend as strongly as we can.
“It was a game we had to win. There are not excuses for Rangers or me as to why we lost today. I don’t want to find excuses, I just want to play as good as we can with the players available. It’s easy to talk about subs and why it didn’t happen. You bring in fresh legs. We put Sakala on the wing to get more bodies up front and to play with a lot of pressure up front.
“We created some chances to score. Not big ones, but enough to score the equaliser. If you lose, the subs are always bad. If you win, it’s always good.
“I’ve had both moments in this season so far. It’s the task of a coach and also if it doesn’t go well it’ s always the blame of the coach. I have tough skin.”
Meanwhile, Rangers captain James Tavernier insists he and his team-mates must put the painful disappointment of their Old Firm defeat behind them as quickly as possible in order to salvage a successful end to their season.
Tavernier admits both the result and the nature of rangers’ performance will not‘ sit right’ with the players as they digest its impact over the next couple of days.
But the 30-year-old is also preparing to issue a rallying call ahead of the first leg of the Europa League quarterfinal against Braga in Portugal on thursday in a campaign which also sees them targeting silverware in the Scottish Cup, where they will face celtic again at Hampden in a fortnight.
“It is not the result we wanted ,” said ta vernier .“we wanted three points and nothing less and to not even get an equaliser is disappointing.
"We started the game well, got an early goal, and then the first attack they score. Both goals, we are reflecting on the disappointment of them with our standards. Through the game, we tried to ask questions and just weren’t clinical.
“There are six games left in the league this season and we are playing Braga this week and are in a semi-final. We can’t dwell on this too much.
“We obviously will look back on it over the next couple of days, but have to focus on Braga now.
“It is not going to sit right with us, but we have got to do our upmost to get the results until the end of the season.”