Gio van Bronckhorst accused his players of conceding “easy” goals as Liverpool scored six without reply after the break in a 7-1 thrashing at Ibrox.
Rangers were well in the game at half-time following an excellent first half in which Scott Arfield scored their first goal of this Champions League campaign. Roberto Firmino equalised seven minutes later but the Gers had caused the Reds enough problems to suggest they could still come away with a positive result.
But it soon became apparent that damage limitation would be the name of the game as Jurgen Klopp’s men hit their stride in the second half and the hosts simply couldn’t keep up. Darwin Nunez’s third was followed by a quick0fire Mo Salaha hat-trick. Harvey Elliott caused further embarrassment with a seventh, for which he even seemed to enjoy the VAR check that made him wait before celebrating.
Van Bronckhorst was delighted with how his side started, but they failed to stick to the game plan and were ruthlessly undone by the rampant Red who were hungry for the goals Rangers didn't do enough to prevent them scoring.
"It was a very disappointing result,” the Dutchman told BT Sport. “We were playing well I think in the first half and were in the game.
“The second goal came from their strength, which we know. We lose the ball in the middle of the pitch and they’re so fast at transition. We got caught a couple of times. We did well first half playing more directly from the second balls and the ball behind the defence. We created some good chances.
“The longer the game went, the more we kept playing short which means you get the pressure from and they do it really well. We had to keep playing more directly and from the second ball to give us the chance to score goals.
“3-1 was after 66 minutes, just as we were about to put three new strikers on to get something out of the game. The two injuries didn’t help with the subs. After that, it went really quick. We conceded too many easy goals and the game went really fast after that.
“You want the start we had today. 1-0 and with the set piece we conceded to 1-1. In those moments lately, we’ve been quite strong away from home. Last week we were strong on set pieces. Today, the first set piece went in and second half, we conceded too easily. We tried to push after 3-1 but you could see we were struggling, because they upped the tempo and we weren’t accurate with our passing. That’s why we conceded so many goals.”
The quality Liverpool were able to bring off the bench would be the envy of most teams in the world. As well as Salah, Scotland skipper Andy Robertson returned to action after a spell out with injury.
But van Bronckhorst insists his players should have been prepared for that. He said: “You see the changes they can make in the end. They had quality players coming on but we knew that. We knew we had to be very strong and very focussed through the game, and we weren’t.”
As for Rangers’ chances of catching Ajax and continuing in the Europa League after Christmas, the Ibrox boss said that was a thought for another day. He added: “I’m not thinking about anything. We’re just processing this defeat.”
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