Rangers hero Brian Laudrup admits he's been left with lingering regret after watching his former team misfire during the Viaplay Cup Final in person.
The Danish icon was left miffed by Michael Beale's decision to start with Nico Raskin in reserve and reckons the same mistake cannot be replicated moving forward. Laudrup believes Celtic weren't at their free-flowing best but still had enough quality to see off their great rivals and edge closer towards another Treble.
And now Laudrup wants lessons to be learned for both Beale and his players moving forward. Speaking in his Daily Mail column, he said: "For Michael Beale and many of his Rangers players, Sunday's Viaplay Cup final will be a source of some lingering regrets. Celtic weren't particularly great at Hampden, I think that's fair to say, but they still thoroughly deserved the season's first trophy given the holes in the performance of their rivals.
"Midfield was the biggest issue for Rangers. In my mind, one lesson is that the energy and positivity of new signings Nicolas Raskin and Todd Cantwell must be front and centre for the remainder of this season. In the case of Raskin, in particular, I would have liked to have seen him involved much earlier against Celtic.
"I really felt he had the skillset to cause Ange Postecoglou's side some problems and said so last week. I like him a lot. That opinion hasn't changed after the way Sunday panned out. If anything, Raskin and Cantwell now appear even more important to the way ahead under Beale.
"Leaving Hampden, I had this nagging feeling that if something had changed at half-time, with fresher legs from these newer players who don't have a history of losing Old Firm games, then perhaps we might have seen more from Rangers. Unfortunately, it wasn't to be.
"I was a little bit surprised when I saw the starting line-up, but I understood the logic as explained by Beale. He was going with experience. He wanted players who knew the fixture and had been at the club for a certain period of time. That's fair enough. But it backfired in this case."
Laudrup believes Rangers' miscue must be a period of self reflection for big-talking Fashion Sakala. The Zambian was full of predictions ahead of the clash with the "other mob", however, his contribution was limited to spurning a gilt-edged chance. The former Ibrox star reckons the time is now for Beale to urge a new strategy for his players in the build-up to big games.
He added: "I think another lesson was the one painfully learned by Sakala. He spoke a lot before the game, saying Rangers were better than Celtic, but didn't back it up at all. Sakala's performance was poor. He had a huge chance to score in the second half and didn't take it.
"You love his pace. It's such a great asset, but his technique is unreliable at times. In the end, there wasn't much behind his talk. He fell flat on his face, unfortunately, and so did Rangers. His words look silly today. Listen, everyone around football is all part of an entertainment industry, really, and it's no crime for a footballer to make headlines with some good quotes. But in the future, I think Beale will definitely want him to do his talking on the pitch."
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