The Press and Journal (Inverness, Highlands, and Islands)
Murty says sorry after fans leave game early
Rangers manager Graeme Murty apologised to the supporters who witnessed their 4-0 defeat to Celtic and said he understood the frustrated reactions of players who were substituted.
Swathes of fans left Hampden early as Celtic strolled towards the final and Murty said he cannot keep asking them to be patient when performances on the park are not up to scratch.
Both Andy Halliday and Daniel Candeias also reacted angrily to being substituted, with Halliday brought off after 40 minutes for Josh Windass with Rangers already 2-0 down.
An angry and frustrated dressing-room greeted Murty after the game and he wants the players to deliver more for the supporters after an embarrassing afternoon.
He said: “I would apologise to them for the game and ask for their patience and to keep believing.
“But it’s no good to keep asking for it – we have to put a performance in worthy of their support.
“It’s been brilliant while I’ve been at the club but we didn’t do
“I would apologise to them for the game and ask for their patience”
enough to make them want to stay in the stadium. I wouldn’t have been happy and I completely understand his reaction.
“But I wanted a different shape in the team and Josh fit the bill. I’ll see Andy in a week and we’ll have a chat.
“When you deal with people in an emotional state, you’ll get an emotional response.
“There was anger, frustration; all the kinds of emotion you’d expect after just going through that.
“There should be an anger and a frustration there but you need to use it as an energy to power you through to the end of the season, rather than allow it to be disruptive.”
Rangers are still embroiled in the race for second, with Aberdeen and Hibernian also involved in a three-way tussle for runnerup spot. Murty hopes yesterday’s humbling defeat does not have a knock-on effect.
Murty said: “It’s our job to make sure it doesn’t. The players need to respond for themselves, it’s not just Celtic we have to play.
“We have some big games ahead and the players need to respond if we want to finish as we should.”
CELTIC RANGERS BY JAMIE DURENT
Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers said he has given no thought to back-to-back trebles after his team brushed Rangers aside 4-0 in the Scottish Cup semi-final.
With the League Cup already in the bag and the Premiership title all but secured, Celtic will have the opportunity of a historic second successive treble when they face Motherwell at Hampden on May 19.
Tom Rogic and Callum McGregor put the league champions 2-0 up in the first half, with spot kicks from Moussa Dembele and Olivier Ntcham capping off the victory. Rangers also had Ross McCrorie sent off for bringing down Dembele for his penalty.
They were comfortably the better team in Mount Florida but any thoughts of sweeping to another treble are premature.
Rodgers said: “What the players have done in the last few seasons has inspired the supporters to believe that sometimes, they can achieve the impossible. When you get to these games you know what’s at stake and it’s a case of making sure the players are clear in their job and can go play their football.
“I’ve not really thought about another treble. We’re in the final now – it won’t be an easy game, it’ll be a second cup final against Motherwell. They’re an honest team and work hard. We have a job to do. We need to finish the season well and we’ll come back here with confidence.”
Celtic’s early dominance paid off when Rogic was picked out by James Forrest and, after shrugging off the attentions of McCrorie, spun the ball beyond Wes Foderingham inside the far post.
Rangers were offering little going forward and lacked any great intensity. By contrast Celtic moved the ball at speed and knew they could hurt Rangers; they did so again before the break as Kieran Tierney’s cross was poorly dealt with by Russell Martin, who hung a leg out and diverted it straight into McGregor’s path to sweep home.
The plight of the Ibrox side got worse five minutes into the second half with McCrorie given a straight red card for a last-man tangle on Dembele. The French striker dinked his penalty down the middle and left Foderingham stricken.
Alfredo Morelos forced two excellent saves out of Craig Gordon and wasted another glorious chance, latching on to a rebound after Mikael Lustig’s clearance came back off his own crossbar but taking too long to finish and letting Gordon get up to block.
But Celtic got their second spot kick of the afternoon with 13 minutes to go as Jason Holt hacked down Patrick Roberts, with Ntcham doing the honours this time to crown a comfortable afternoon’s work.
Rodgers said: “In these types of games, there’ll be a bit of focus on the other manager. But I think Graeme’s done a very good job in the short period of time he’s been in. We always respect each team we play and you can see from the performance of our players how much they were looking forward to it.”