James Tavernier has apologised to fuming Rangers fans after they suffered a humiliating defeat in the Champions League at the hands of Liverpool at Ibrox.
Liverpool 's 7-1 win on Wednesday night was the worst defeat Rangers had ever suffered at Ibrox and it came even more as a surprise given the fact the Scottish side took the lead in the first half.
Mohamed Salah came off the bench to score a hat-trick in record time in the Champions League as it took him little over six minutes, leading to Rangers fans accusing their side of throwing in the towel.
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Tavernier held up his hands and admitted this sort of performance was not acceptable from a Rangers side, especially in front of their own fans.
He said: “We obviously apologise. We never want to lose to that kind of scoreline to anybody, no matter what team it is.
"We have worked so hard to get to this point. You see the away game. It was 2-0 but we had a chance down there and limited them to two set-pieces. But to concede seven at home in front of your own fans is never good enough. You never want to see that.
“Obviously you can take the positives out of the first 45 and then it’s 55 minutes before they score again. But it’s the Champions League. We are proud to be competing with these teams but we need to work hard and look at the things we have done wrong going forward.”
The defender highlighted Liverpool bringing on Thiago Alcantara, Salah and Diogo Jota as a reason as to why the scoreline was so heavy.
"It’s simple. Liverpool made three substitutions in Jota, Salah and Thiago, all world-class players, and they caught us trying to play football in the wrong areas," added Tavernier.
"They capitalised on it and that’s the difference. They are world-class players and if you give them a chance or a sniff, eight times out of ten they have a chance of taking it. That’s what they did.
“We are disappointed with the scoreline. I felt we competed really well in the first half. We got ourselves in front and really limited their chances. But when it gets to the final whistle and you see the scoreline of 7-1, you just feel disappointed.
“When you give them the chances that we did with the quality they have...we tried to limit it but we didn’t do good enough in that aspect. We went in 1-1 at half-time and we were really positive. We wanted to continue doing what we did in the first half.
“They sort of dropped back a bit and set the traps for us when we tried to push a bit more, as obviously the space was there. With the attackers they have and the pace they run at, it obviously made it difficult for ourselves.”
When pushed to explain what happened in the Rangers dressing room after the game, the Gers skipper said: “We always do after games. Win, lose or draw, we have a chat.
“We will take the positives and negatives out of games. If we win, we will still take the negatives out of it and try to learn from it, correct it and make ourselves better.
“This was another one and it was a meeting to go over the game. As you can imagine, emotions are high after the game but we have looked over the game, analysed it and looked at what we can work on. We take it into account and we work on it.”
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