Unflinching Michael Beale gathered his beaten players on the Hampden turf and ordered them to suck up the bitter feeling of defeat in an Old Firm cup final to make them stronger for the future.
The Rangers boss suffered the first defeat of his Ibrox tenure as his team went down 2-1 to Celtic in the Viaplay Cup Final and Beale admitted his team got what it deserved. And he brought them together on the pitch after Nick Walsh’s final whistle to hammer home the message that improvement is needed if they are to challenge their rivals from across the city, who still have a Treble in their sights.
Beale said: “I told them to suck it up. It’s not nice, but on the day we didn’t come to the game until the second half in my opinion, so no qualms. On the day we lost the game and it’s not nice, so suck it up, get on board. You have to look at yourself in the mirror every day and that’s your biggest opponent. Are you being honest with that person? Are we working hard enough? Is the work we’re doing good enough?
“These are the days that we are judged on. We have to win the other games, but on these days this is when judgment day comes and we get it. We take it on. So that was what we spoke about in that brief moment there. I didn’t want anyone making any false opinions in their mind. We lost the game.”
Beale stood by his decision to keep new signings Nico Raskin and Todd Cantwell on the bench at the start of the game - with both players making a difference when coming on after an hour.
He added: “That same team played ever so well at the Old Firm at New Year and it put in the best performance in terms of 90 minutes since I’ve come back away at Hearts. On that night, we were excellent. Malik Tillman and the front three had been in fine form since I’ve come back, over 20 goals in that team that was there since I’ve come back, so it’s fine.
“You’ve got two players that have come into the club that played two-and-a-half games each against opponents where you’ve got the ball. There was a little bit more to do today defensively, but also match legs, so there were no qualms in terms of performance, I just felt at that moment, I needed to shake the tree a little bit and try something. We were stronger after that because we scored, but we scored from an isolated incident before we made those changes.
“But we started the game really poorly. We never found any rhythm in the first half. We were always in the game, but we never played with a rhythm that we wanted to, that we can do. There’s no complaints with the overall result. I thought at the start of the second half, we improved, we had a big moment when Ryan (Kent) hits the post and we should do better with the rebound.
“If we score in that moment, then that’s it, there might be a momentum change. We find ourselves 2-0 down, but we go and score and show a lot of character and resilience to try to push the game. But I was expecting more, from the team, from myself, from the day, so it’s disappointing.
“So no excuses, Celtic won the game and congratulations to them. We lost today and it’s the end of the world in terms of today. But tomorrow we wake up and the job is just as big as it was regardless of whether we won this game or not.
“It’s important we bite down on the gum-shield and take our medicine. It doesn’t taste too nice right now but when I look at the team, with the promise of Viaplay Cup and with Raskin and with Cantwell, there is enough for me to be super optimistic about the future.
“Is it going to be plain sailing? Of course it isn’t. But would everything be rosy if we’d have won this cup final? No, we would still have had that work to do. It’s my job to do that tomorrow and I don’t mind being judged on that. But at this moment in time it’s probably not the right time for me to be going on about the greater future. It’s more, okay, what didn’t go right today in this fixture and what do we have to do to to fix it against Celtic? Because against everybody else it seems to have been fine so far.”
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