Rangers manager Steven Gerrard changed his approach by addressing his players before media duties following Wednesday night’s loss to Hamilton, as captured by RangersTV.
The Gers’ wretched spell of domestic form continued, with the worst of all the results since the turn of the year.
Brian Rice’s Accies came to Ibrox bottom of the Scottish Premiership table, but emerged 1-0 winners.
David Moyo scored the only goal of the game in the 56th minute, earning the visitors a shock victory and heaping further pressure on the Rangers manager.
Following Saturday’s Scottish Cup defeat to Hearts, he left the players to stew in the changing room, but this time, he was straight in asking questions.
“We’ve spoken to them and the dressing room is very quiet,” said Gerrard, as captured by RangersTV. “We had a discussion, I’m asking questions, I’m asking for reasons why we’ve played ourselves into this rut and why confidence is so low, because we’ve got real good players in the dressing room.”
“This doesn’t look like the group of players who were doing so well a short time ago. So, we all have to stick together and roll on and try and play our way out of it because we’ve played ourselves into it. We’ve got ourselves to blame.”
Verdict
It was a dreadful night for Rangers at Ibrox, succumbing to a team who hadn’t won any of their previous eight matches.
Clearly, Accies raised their game and rode their luck on the night, but they are a team the Gers would have comfortably dispatched earlier in the season.
If the result itself wasn’t galling enough for Bears, the fact that Celtic’s slip up at Livingston went unpunished will bring further pain.
Gerrard looked shellshocked after this latest failing and it appears that for now, he and his coaching staff haven’t worked out what’s at the root of the domestic collapse.
The Gers have now failed to win five of nine Premiership matches since the winter break, with their title challenge utterly derailed.
