GIOVANNI VAN BRONCKHORST vowed to fight on as Rangers manager after admitting the pressure is building on his position at Ibrox.
The Dutchman saw his side slump to a 2-1 defeat to St Johnstone on Sunday as goals from James Brown and Nicky Clark clinched a famous win at McDiarmid Park.
Rangers are now seven points adrift of Celtic in the Premiership title race and Van Bronckhorst's side were once again booed off the park by a furious support.
This defeat will only increase the debate surrounding Van Bronckhorst's future ahead of the visit of Hearts and trip to St Mirren before the World Cup break.
"Of course, I have said it many times," Van Bronckhorst said when asked if he could understand the reaction from supporters. "If you lose 2-1 against St Johnstone away, for me there is no excuse.
"It is already [pressure on my position in] the last couple of weeks. Of course a defeat doesn’t help. But we have to continue. It is a tough one to take and the loss we had to today.
"We have to [rally against Hearts], of course. We are very disappointed with the result and we need to look forward.
"It is always difficult to take losses, especially when you are the manager and player of a big club. You are expected to win, that is obvious, and if you don’t win you are very disappointed.
"Of course the determination is always there but you see if you work hard, that is all you can do. It doesn’t mean you always win matches.
"You have to prepare the team well and today, especially the first half hour we did really well. In the end we played more against ourselves than the opponent.
"Of course [results are a worry]. If you drop points it is always disappointing. At home to Livingston we lost two points and today we lost three points so that is five points in three league games.
"Obviously people are not happy and we are not happy as well. It is what it is at the moment."
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