PEDRO Caixinha yesterday branded his Rangers players an embarrassment to the Ibrox club – less than 24 hours after accepting full responsibility for the Betfred Cup semi-final defeat.
Caixinha, who will hold talks with chairman and major shareholder Dave King this week, also admitted that his men, who lost 2-0 to Motherwell at Hampden on Sunday, lacked a big game mentality.
The Portuguese coach, under mounting pressure ahead of the Ladbrokes Premiership meeting with Kilmarnock at home tomorrow, admitted he had been ashamed by the display and called on his side to prove they are behind him.
“I’ve told the players ‘you are embarrassing me, you are embarrassing our club, you are embarrassing our fans’,” he said. “If they are in a semi-final (with the chance) to make history for this club and they play like that, then something is wrong.
“Now I expect to be paid the other way around. These players play for this club, for this badge, for me. Are they behind me? That’s what they need to show.”
Asked if his Rangers side, who have lost all of their meetings with Celtic as well as two semi-finals since he took over, failed to perform in big games, Caixinha said: “That’s a fact.”
He continued: “We feel we prepared in the right way to show the players what we wanted from the game. But there was a huge difference from what we had been working on to the way the team played.
“We have spoken before about not being able to win three games in a row and we found that the pattern is there.
“The pattern is that when the third game comes along – and normally it is a key game or a very important game like the Old Firm or a cup semi-final – the team doesn’t give you a strong response.
“They are not reaching that last level, the final stage of being a Rangers player.
“That’s why we didn’t play our game. We tried to play put from the back once and when it didn’t work we didn’t try it again. I have a word for that and I discussed it with the players. We cannot be afraid of winning.
“I want my players to understand my feelings, to understand that we were ashamed at what happened on Sunday and I want them to react properly.
“However, in the last part of the analysis I said to the players ‘I believe in you’. I am the one who has brought many of them here.
“Playing in front of your fans in a semi-final or in other key matches needs to be something that creates ambition, passion. You play it and enjoy it rather than the opposite.”
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