Michael Beale tore into his Rangers players for a defensive “horror show” against St Mirren - and warned he won’t stand for any repeats.
Hot on the heels of last week’s Old Firm defeat that saw Celtic capitalise on two blunders, the Ibrox side were guilty of another two lapses to let St Mirren fight back to 2-2 before Beale's side eventually saw out a 5-2 victory. The Light Blues boss read the riot act at half-time and afterwards claimed it was changes to shape and personnel made from the sidelines which led to victory. Two Alfredo Morelos goals and a Scott Arfield strike all in the last 10 minutes secured the points.
But the sloppiness infuriated the manager ahead of a trip to Pittodrie next Sunday, which comes ahead of the Scottish Cup semi final against Celtic. And Beale raged: “I thought we became passive. I was really annoyed with St Mirren’s first goal. Take nothing away from the boy O’Hara, it was a fantastic strike. But if you rewind it back, we had a four-vs-three in the attacking third. We were very wasteful in that moment – and our reaction from that was dreadful.
“From everybody – from Todd after shooting, from the reaction of people running back, the back four dropped off. There was a cross ball which we didn’t get out to.
“It was a horror show for us – and I told them that at half-time. I expected us to come out and be better in the second half. We scored again and you think: ‘Ok, we’ll settle down and go again’. But then we let in another sloppy goal. It was the changes from the side, the shape and the personnel, that won us the game.
“We lost a big game last weekend to two errors that we could do better with and this time we lost two goals with two poor moments. It’s not a good look on us as a team.
“It’s something the staff pride themselves on—our defensive organisation and our pressing. Whenever this club has done well in the last few years it has been because of the team effort when defending and it’s not something I’m willing to accept.
“Sometimes I have to smile a little bit more but I’m setting this team up for bigger challenges, bigger days and to go on long runs. The good teams don’t let goals in. The good team keep clean sheets and if they don’t, they let in one.
“We’re letting in goals far more than I would like. Some people would point at the five we scored and say you have to open up to score them but those two we conceded were similar to last week’s two.
“I’m going to be annoyed about it and it takes me a few days to get over it. They certainly feel it behind the scenes.”
