JAMES Tavernier has bemoaned the “questionable” decisions which he felt cost Rangers a result against Celtic at Parkhead today – but admitted he was proud of his team mates for how they performed and described the defeat as “a bump in the road” in the Scottish title race.
Tavernier, who gave the visitors a chance of salvaging a draw when he curled in a long-range free-kick with just over two minutes of regulation time remaining, felt that Kyogo Furuhashi, who netted a stunning second half goal, was the difference between the two teams.
The Ibrox captain, who stressed he was determined to bounce back from the 2-1 loss in the cinch Premiership match against Kilmarnock in Govan on Tuesday night, conceded that he and his team mates need to be far more clinical in the final third to win the Old Firm games in future.
“It’s obviously a hard one to take,” he said. “But there are a lot of positives in there too. Like the mentality of the team to create more chances when we went down to 10 men, having more shots. It’s the small margins when it comes to any game, just finishing those chances.
“Moving forward we can take the positives and Tuesday is an important game in terms of our reaction. There is plenty to play for. As the gaffer says this league is a marathon and we will continue to keep pushing.
“We wanted to come here and get a result and although we didn’t do that we take the positives and move forward. It’s just the clinical side, small details that we lacked today. But I can’t fault the players for the effort they put in after we went down to 10 men. Tuesday is now important and we have to get three points.
“The manager said it was a difficult one to take but that we could be proud of the way we played. What we did throughout the duration of the game and we keep moving.”
Asked about the Alistair Johnston handball incident just before half-time, Tavernier said: “It was a bit of a strange one. Thinking it’s a penalty, it doesn’t really get checked and it’s offside. There was a lot of confusion with what was going on. But I think it was a day with a lot of decisions that were questionable.
“But it’s like any game, you have to be clinical. I think Kyogo has had two shots against us in two games and he has scored both of them. That’s the difference. We created good chances. Like Ross (McCausland) with his chance through one on one. We just have to be more clinical and take those chances.”
