DAVID MCCALLUM admits Rangers let themselves down collectively as they blew their chance of Hampden silverware against Hibernian.
New Ibrox boss Giovanni van Bronckhorst watched his side crash to a 3-1 defeat on Sunday as they missed out on an Old Firm final in the Premier Sports Cup.
A first half hat-trick from Martin Boyle ended the semi as a contest on a night where a Scott Arfield strike just before the break offered Rangers only a forlorn hope.
The champions were complicit in their own downfall as they produced another shoddy defensive showing and interim boss McCallum knows there can be no Hampden hangover as van Bronckhorst prepares to take charge at Ibrox.
"I think it is a we," McCallum said when asked if his players let themselves down at Hampden. "I think we let ourselves down today.
"We are part of the staff, we are involved in what has happened in the game. The players will be frustrated because we know that we should be managing these games better, I don’t think there is any question about that at all.
"They are honest enough to deal with that. I keep going back to the goals that we lose, you can’t leave yourself with a 3-0 deficit and find that it is going to be easy to come back into it.
"As a group we are frustrated, there is no question about that at all. But they are also a group that need to get back on and move forward again because there is a lot to play for this season.
"A massive game coming up on Thursday evening and after that we are back in league business. There is a lot still to be played for.
"Tonight is hugely disappointing but we have to look forward and make sure we bounce back in the next game."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel