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The National (Scotland)
The National (Scotland)
Sport
Christopher Jack

Michael Beale makes Rangers 'Jekyll and Hyde' call after commanding Hibernian win

MICHAEL BEALE has challenged Rangers to eradicate the 'Jekyll and Hyde' performances from their Premiership form after a stunning win over Hibernian.

The Englishman maintained his unbeaten league run as boss thanks to a 4-1 victory that was secured through a James Tavernier penalty, brace from Antonio Colak and second half Fashion Sakala strike.

Rangers fell behind inside ten minutes as Connor Goldson converted into his own net but that was as good as it got for Lee Johnson as his side were outplayed and outclassed in an entertaining affair at Easter Road.

And Beale is pleased with the direction that Rangers are heading in despite seeing his Premiership efforts fail to erode any of the nine-point deficit to Old Firm rivals Celtic in recent weeks.

Beale said: "The league form has been absolutely fantastic, we shouldn’t have a problem with belief we just don’t want the Jekyll and Hyde performances.

"Now we’re getting people fit, John Souttar and Ridvan played 45 minutes yesterday so they’re available from the weekend. Rabbi Matondo is back available and you can see although Ianis Hagi has been out for a year, he’s slowly getting back in and around the group.

"There’s a lot of competition, people are playing for their futures and for minutes right now. I’m happy with where we’re going.

"I know one or two isolated moments can lead to noise on the outside but inside the building, I’m really happy. Our form in the league is excellent, all we can do is win the games in front of us.

"We have a huge game at the weekend, the warning is there because we weren’t very good against Partick, if we aren’t at our best Raith will give us problems and it is a trophy we want to retain."

Rangers should have won by a larger margin at Easter Roads as a series of spurned chances in either half let Hibernian off the hook after a ragged defensive display.

Beale was delighted with the midfield pairing of Ryan Jack and Nicolas Raskin, while Todd Cantwell also impressed behind the front three of Colak, Sakala and Ryan Kent.

Beale said: "Away from home when teams come for us and open, Hibs tried to attack the game, if we’re defensively strong and we regain the ball in interesting areas we can punish teams, that was maybe the story of the game.

"Defensively, as impressive as we were with the ball it all came off the work ethic of the whole team, the whole outfield players pressing, running and moving together. We won a lot of the duels in the game and it left Hibs a little bit vulnerable.

"We could have been more ruthless but in a professional game when you score four goals away form home you shouldn’t be moaning, you should be happy your team have scored that many."

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