Manager Mark Warburton has admitted that it was a bad day at the office for Rangers in the weekend’s draw with Greenock Morton. Martyn Waghorn also gave his thoughts following the match.
Beginning with Warburton in his post game press interviews carried by the Official Site, he admitted we were well below our own self set standards in the two all draw and for as bad as we were, he had to be content it was just one of those days and be happy with the return of a point.
He is obviously expecting a reaction in the next match though.
‘There are no excuses, we were poor today, the players would be the first to admit it, they are a really honest group. As a group of staff and players we know we were well below our best today and it shouldn`t take Morton going 2-1 ahead for us to suddenly show the energy and the purpose and the quality. All credit to Morton and there is no doom and gloom, the players recognise we lost a good opportunity today but we showed the character again right to the end. A bit more quality and we could have got the points we wanted but no excuses, recognise when you are below par and then find the solution and keep getting better.’
The frustration for Warburton was that we started the game exactly how they had all spoken about, but after the first five minutes, it was a ‘poor first half’ and he said those were the words the players used.
‘Just sloppy in our possession, sloppy in decision making, didn`t play with the urgency and the tempo that we normally play with. As I say parts of the second half were okay, but we never really showed the quality, so it was a bad day at the office in that respect and to use the skipper`s words ‘there`s no doom and gloom.’ We have to recognise what we have to do better and where we need to get to and they`ll do that I`ve no doubt about that. We`ve conceded goals, but we haven`t taken chances. We probably had 63 to 65 percent possession or something. That`s irrelevant if you don`t maximise it. You`ve got to create chances and test the keeper and show your quality in that key final third, and today we didn`t. Too many loose balls, too many loose touches, too many poor decisions, lack of movement. Everything that you don`t associate with that squad of players, but today, as I said, was a bad day at the office, but no damage done, we`ve got to learn from it, and they will do because there is no doubt in the quality within the changing room, and we`ll prepare for next week now.’
As for Waghorn, in his interview he admitted he was pleased to have taken his own goal tally in the game to 20 for the year so far, but he said the shine was taken off by the overall performance and the fact we didn’t pick up all three points.
‘It was a bitterly disappointing day for us. We started off really well, but after about five minutes, we couldn`t get a grip of the game and it`s so disappointing. We were sloppy and slow, but it`s over now, and while we showed good character to come back, it shouldn`t take going 2-1 behind to react like that. I don`t think us taking our foot off the gas was intentional, and it may just have been psychological thinking it was going to be one of those games for us. But, all credit to Morton. They played fantastically well, had a very good game plan to defend and hit on the break.’
With Falkirk up next, Waghorn went on to say if there was a positive it was that despite the performance we still created opportunities to have won the game, but without question improvement has to be shown in the next match.
‘I had a header and another chance. But we had a fair few chances and on another day, one of them might have gone in. It just showed that it is there for us, but we didn`t get it out for the 90 minutes. It`s disappointing it took going 2-1 down to get a reaction like that. But we`ll analyse the game, see where went wrong and build for next Saturday. Falkirk are a very good, well organised side with a bit of quality as well, so it`s going to be a tough game as every game is, so it up to us to work hard this week, get a plan in place, and go from there.’
Share this article
