Rangers missed the chance to record a fifth successive win – meaning we very much had winning momentum if nothing else heading into the Celtic game – when we were held by St Johnstone.
Mark Warburton had played down the significance of the upcoming Old Firm game saying that was irrelevant to the draw at St Johnstone on Wednesday – what is as significant to that game as it will be Celtic tomorrow is the taking of chances.
The failure of Rangers to convert more of our opportunities is what cost us two points with the boss telling rangers.co.uk post-match we’ve got to take these.
‘This weekend`s game is irrelevant in terms of taking your chances because whatever game you are in, home or away, you have to take your chances.’
Adding.
‘We were very good first-half, we had balls flashing across the box, we were getting into wide areas, Jason Holt was getting beyond Josh Windass. I thought we were good and in the second-half we dropped off in terms of quality but we still only had X number of shots and we didn`t really test the keeper and we need to do that.’
Barrie McKay eventually opened the scoring midway through the first half but Rangers were soon pegged back by St Johnstone as they capitalised on a mistake by Rob Kiernan.
Warburton went on to praise the performance from McKay and refused to be too hard on Kiernan.
‘Barrie McKay was excellent tonight, he showed his quality, his tight ball control is outstanding and so is his desire to take a man on. It`s the same as Rob Kiernan because as a wide player you make mistakes, a defender will win a dual but what do you do? Shy away? No you go again. Barrie has so much ability and I have said many times before that he can go as high as he wants to go in the game.’
Rangers were without captain Lee Wallace due to injury so Warburton opted for three central defenders playing Kiernan, Clint Hill and Danny Wilson across the middle – we did lose veteran Hill to injury in the second half too though.
The boss finished by saying he was happy with the formation used in Perth.
‘You saw the physicality and the size of St Johnstone and we knew what we had to do. Playing three centre-halves we dealt with set pieces very well and threatened in their box as well so we are happy with that.’
