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

James Tavernier pinpoints Rangers positives despite Champions League defeat to Napoli

JAMES TAVERNIER pinpointed the performances of Ridvan Yilmaz and James Sands as the two main positives for Rangers to take from a difficult night in Napoli.

Giovanni van Bronckhorst's side suffered a fifth successive Group A defeat as the Italians cruised to a comfortable victory and should have won by a greater margin.

Rangers now face the almost impossible task of overcoming Ajax by five goals in their final Champions League clash to secure a spot in the Europa League this term.

It was another dispiriting occasion for supporters to witness but captain Tavernier insists there were chinks of light as Giovanni Simeone netted twice and Leo Ostigard nodded home late on.

Tavernier said: "Obviously we are disappointed that we lost. I felt we could take some positives out of that compared to the rest of the games we have played in the group.

"We let in two easy goals in the first half and then I felt that we had two big chances which could have levelled the game.

"There were some performances in our team that were really good today – James Sands and Ridvan – and I thought they had a really good game.

"We have got to take the positives out of this game and build from that.

"They took their chances and we conceded a corner. That is the level you are playing at, teams get chances and normally they stick it away. We have to learn from that.

"Basically [the manager said] what I am saying now. It is a defeat but it feels like a strange one because there are some good individual performances in that and collectively as a team. We have got to take the positives out of that and move [on].

"Any game our objective is to win games. It is our last game at home and we have got to put a performance in for our fans. That is what we will be looking to do."

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