Tavernier says sorry after grim campaign ends in another loss
finalists had fallen short in European football’s premier competition, Tavernier said: ‘It was a proud moment for all of us to come into this competition but we’ve not done ourselves justice. ‘We’ve not given the fans what they wanted and we will own up to that and can only apologise. ‘We obviously want to do better and I believe in the first half we could have fought a bit more and (showed) more hunger. ‘We were better in the second half but in these games you can’t wait for 45 minutes because you will get punished. ‘We never want to get beat. We are a club known for trophies and winning games and we did well last season getting to the Europa League final and playing against big teams. We wanted to do that this season but we’ve not met the mark. ‘We wanted to finish our final game, especially at home, with a positive result, but we couldn’t do that. But it’s a learning curve.’ Rangers slipped to their final defeat courtesy of goals from Steven Berghuis, Mohammed Kudus and a third from substitute Francisco Conceicao after Tavernier had given brief hope by converting an 87th-minute penalty kick. When pressed on his comments about Rangers lacking hunger and fight, Tavernier hit back and claimed Ajax were fresher because they did not play a league game at the weekend. He said: ‘We have missed a lot of players and we played a lot of games. With their fresh legs you could see their combinations and they were moving freely. It was something we couldn’t really get close to. ‘So I probably won’t say the hunger and fight (weren’t there). ‘It is just they are a quality side with quality players.’ Rangers boss Van Bronckhorst was disappointed to end with zero points and urged his side to learn the harsh lessons at this level. He said: ‘Those are facts. I cannot change the facts. We struggled in the Champions League and we need to learn from it and try to qualify again next year and try to do better. ‘Ajax had six days off. They came here really fresh. I’m not saying we need help. I just say they had a free weekend.’