Steven Gerrard blasted his sides start to their 1-1 draw away to Hearts on Sunday blaming a poor mentality and work rate as the reason they found themselves 1-0 behind after just 6 minutes at Tynecastle before Alfredo Morelos levelled the scores.
The Rangers gaffer said of his team’s performance via the official Rangers website:
“I’m frustrated and disappointed in the performance. I thought we started the game really badly with the wrong mentality and the wrong attitude.”
“We never went into the game knowing that we had to compete and earn the right and we were lucky not to be a couple down in the opening 10 minutes. It was another individual error for the goal, but before that, they have hit the crossbar as well”.
Indeed, James Tavernier came under a lot of pressure post-match for being culpable at the Hearts goal as he continues his difficult start to the season, missing penalties and making mistakes leading to goals. With the Gers now off top spot on goals scored compared to Celtic, the next few games against Motherwell and Ross County before November’s League Cup semi-final against the Jambos take on an added importance.
All of them come after Thursday’s huge trip to Porto in the Europa League, with all four of the sides in Group G tied on three points heading into the third round of fixtures.
Following the result, Rangers fans took to Twitter in reaction to the manager’s comments amid the concern over the Ibrox club’s away form so far this season.
We started the game with the wrong team too gaffer… Tav and goldson need dropped for a couple of games… and the midfield was far too similar… arfield and aribo a mile off it today! Don’t know why morelos went off when we needed to win the game either…
— James (@44LHammertime) October 20, 2019
The precedent has been set Stevie. Individual errors cost us and you ignore it. That’s going to be your downfall. We’ll never win the league if the SAME person continues to make mistake after mistake after mistake and you do nothing about it.
— Emma Q 🏴🇬🇧 (@EKQuinny02) October 20, 2019
Do something about it then, rather than continuing to pick the same old players who repeatedly make errors in the big games. Number of players in that team who lack the winning mentality.
— David MacDonald (@d_mac2912) October 20, 2019
This squad need to stop reading their own press. Won nothing yet. Don’t they realize this? Frustrating
— houstontrueblue (@houstontrueblue) October 20, 2019
I dont listen to Steven Gerrard anymore. How many times, when it matters, have HIS players let the fans down? A mistake by Rangers player GOAL. Its fast becoming a regular feature of HIS teams. I dont think he has got it as a Manager, got to support the team though.
— tom bills (@tombills11) October 20, 2019
Mentality and attitude is down SG, not the players.
— Jim O’Doherty (@JimODoherty7) October 20, 2019
