STEVEN Gerrard last night accepted full responsibility for Rangers’ shock defeat to Aberdeen in the William Hill Scottish Cup quarter-final replay at Ibrox.
Gerrard’s players were booed off the park by their own supporters after they had crashed to their third loss of the 2018/19 campaign to Derek McInnes’s men in Glasgow.
They conceded goals to Niall McGinn in the first-half and Connor McLennan in the second as their opponents booked a semi-final place against Celtic at Hampden next month.
The result means that Rangers, who are eight points behind their city rivals in the Ladbrokes Premiership with nine games remaining, will struggle to win a trophy this season.
Gerrard, the Liverpool and England great who was a surprise appointment by the Govan club last May, stressed that he would accept culpability for the devastating reverse.
“I’ve put this squad together and I’ve picked the team and tactics, so I’ll take full responsibility for it,” he said.
“I’ve sat here on a lot of occasions and took a bit of praise and accept that, so I’ll sit here and take responsibility for it.
“If a result and performance puts the spotlight on me, that’s fine. I’ll take it on the chin, I’m man enough to accept that.
“It’s my job now to try and move on from this which will be tough because it was such a big game and we knew what was at stake.
“It’s my job now to lift the players, keep us together until the end of the season and then see where we are. Then we’ll see what the summer brings. It’s a big problem and challenge for me now.”
Gerrard confessed that his players’ failure to rise to the occasion with nearly 50,000 Rangers supporters – Aberdeen only had 850 fans in the crowd - cheering them on at Ibrox had been alarming.
“It's a big concern,” he said. “I had confidence and trust and belief in the players and the team that we picked that they'd be good enough.
“Normally after a defeat or a performance you can look for certain positives but I can't find one. That's the reality so I am concerned.
“Those players go out there to represent the players and myself first and foremost, but anyone connected with Rangers can’t be going away with any positives tonight.”
Gerrard continued: “I’m very disappointed and angry looking at our performance because it was nowhere near good enough in every single department.
“I can’t find a positive out there, really. Aberdeen deserved to win. We started the game really poorly and gifted them a goal on the back of that bad start.
“It never really got much better from there. From start to finish, we were miles off tonight in every department. It is very difficult to sit here and find any positivity.
“Credit to Aberdeen, they deserve to be going to Hampden. We can’t expect to be going anywhere near that place after a performance like that.”
Alfredo Morelos, the Rangers striker, was booked for diving when he went down in the Aberdeen penalty box during the first-half.
But Gerrard refused to use that, or the Glen Kamara mistake that gifted the away team a goal in just the third minute, as an excuse for the performance or result.
“I haven't had a chance to look back on it,” he said. “But it doesn't take anything away whether it was a yellow or a penalty. My main concern is with the performance as a whole and it wasn't anywhere near good enough.
“I think the problem came before the mistake. We started very sloppy. We didn't start with any kind of intent, which we asked for.
“The mistake came on the back of a poor start. But I think it's a cop out just to blame tonight on an individual error. No-one hit the level tonight. No-one hit near the level tonight.”
Asked what his objectives for the remainder of the season will be, Gerrard said: “We have to win the next game. We have to analyse it from game to game and see where we are.
“We need to try to take three points (against Kilmarnock) at the weekend then we go into a big fixture against Celtic.
“That's all I can concern myself with now, the next couple of weeks. We'll see where we end up at the end of the season.
“But I'm very, very disappointed, I'm angry that we're out of this cup because we're at home with the fans behind us and an opportunity to show we're better than Aberdeen and we didn't do it. We were second best tonight.”
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