James Tavernier didn’t try to hide his frustration at Rangers’ failure to eat into Celtic’s lead at the top of the table after blowing a two-goal lead against Motherwell.
Giovanni van Bronckhorst’s side were cruising in front of their own fans at the interval, two goals up and looking to add to the lead.
But they were pegged back and Tavernier knows that if the title is to be retained, that kind of capitulation is unacceptable.
And the man who has scored 75 goals for Rangers from right-back is demanding that his team-mates take far more of the chances they are creating week in, week out.
He said: “I’m extremely disappointed.
“We were comfortable in the first half, going two goals up and constantly asking questions but in the second half we let them back in the game with two poor goals and we need to be more clinical in the final third.
“We are playing good football up to those areas and putting them under pressure but it’s just that final bit of magic from all of us to make a difference.
“I don’t think they had many chances but the chances they had, they put away.
“We know that no matter what level we play at, we can always get punished if we let teams have chances and that’s what we did today.
“It’s a missed opportunity. We are still three points behind and need a massive performance on Wednesday now.
“If you look at the Dundee United game and today, we played really good football but we couldn’t put the ball in the back of the net.
“I’ve not looked back on the two (Alfredo Morelos) offside goals but I’m told one was maybe onside, but even at that, we’ve still got to create more than that.
“We are creating but it’s just that final piece that we need to finish teams off and we definitely need to see games out when we’ve got a 2-0 lead at home.”
But Tavernier insisted his team will be ready for Wednesday’s clash with St Johnstone at McDiarmid Park after a debrief this morning at training.
He told Rangers TV: “We’ll be in tomorrow, reflect on the game, look back on where we need to improve, then put this to the side.
“The full focus is on Wednesday and we’ve got to put in a massive performance away from home.
“We’ve got to go there and get the three points.”
It promises to be a no holds barred discussion with manager Van Bronckhorst unhappy at the number of times Rangers are failing to turn relentless pressure into three points.
He said: “We need to do better. We need to be better at finishing and creating chances and making goals.
“Today it has cost us again some important points.
“We have to be more solid at the back and try to avoid the goals against us.
“We didn’t do that today. We’ve lost two goals in the league at home for the first time.
“But we have to be back being ruthless defensively and also ruthless in finishing the chances.”
Van Bronckhorst explained his decision to play John Lundstram at centre back.
He said: “Filip (Helander) was not available and Leon (Balogun) has just come back from injury and we took quite a risk to put him in the game on Thursday. I think John did really well and first half you could see his passing and defensively he was also strong.
“We could have won the game by a margin but so many times we are dominating games, creating a lot of chances but in the end it came short of the win.
“We had that at Dundee United away and today was the same.
“I am very disappointed with the result. We started off really well, scored two goals and it could have been more.
“But then you have to continue with that in the second half and try to score the third goal.
“We pushed but when it’s 2-0 and they score, the belief comes back to them.
“If we get a third goal, the game would have been gone.
“We were then pushing to make it 3-1 but it didn’t fall. They only had one chance to score the equaliser.
“At 2-2, we didn’t win the battles prior to the goal.
“After that we tried everything to get the goal and had some chances to make it 3-2, but in the end it didn’t fall.”
And after the euphoria of Thursday night’s Europa League triumph over Borussia Dortmund, Van Bronckhorst knows it was a massive deflation for players and fans alike.
He added: “You see every game as a new game. The win from Thursday doesn’t count for today.”
