Rangers boss Mark Warburton has admitted that his side’s second half performance in their 1-1 draw with St. Johnstone in the Scottish Premiership on Wednesday night was not up to the mark.
The Gers, who were desperate to return to winning ways after losing 1-0 to their arch-rivals Celtic in the Scottish League Cup last weekend, fell behind in the fifth minute at Ibrox after Blair Alston found the back of the net.
The hosts replied positively and found the equaliser through Joel Garner in the 37th minute as Rangers headed into the half time break looking the stronger of the two teams.
However, Rangers failed to add to their tally after the break as the Scottish giants lost a glorious opportunity to move up the league table.
“It is an opportunity missed for us to climb the table and you could say it was a disappointing game because we are at home and we want to win those games of football – it’s been a frustrating evening”, he told Rangers TV.
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“We conceded a very good goal but then I thought we moved the ball well first-half and we were patient and got the ball back.
“We went in at half-time and felt we would have come out for a stronger second-half but we have to be honest with ourselves and the second-half wasn’t what we wanted as a group.
“We didn’t move the ball well enough, we didn’t take care enough and we didn’t get the rewards we were after tonight [Wednesday].”
Warburton, who praised Garner’s equaliser, however, feels St. Johnstone’s goal was freakish.
“It was a great goal to get us back into it and we were getting contact first on set-pieces which was nice to see but we could have been a bit braver possibly on a few occasions and we spoke about that at half-time”, he continued.
“It was one of those freaky situations for their goal with Lee [Wallace] over on the far side but it was a tremendous finish and then you find yourself 1-0 down so early on in the game against a very well organised team.”
Rangers, who are currently fifth in the Scottish Premiership with 16 points from 10 games, will next welcome Kilmarnock to Ibrox on Saturday.
