The boos rang out at the final whistle at Ibrox on Saturday – and Ally McCoist was just as furious following Rangers’ 1-1 draw with Montrose.
And the manager made his feelings known.
“I felt like booing myself…I’m probably as angry as I’ve ever been - certainly as
a manager - with that performance. It quite simply wasn’t good enough and our standard of finishing was probably worse than that.
“The players had better switch on or they’ll be completely switched off. I’m not even interested about Montrose’s wondergoal with two minutes to go. You could see it coming.
“I would hope today’s level of performance will act as a wake-up call for a lot of the players, not just one or two. My disappointment covers the entire team.
“I said to them after the game we live and die as a team. That will always be the case and the individuals within the team know that themselves.
“That level of performance will not be tolerated.
“It seems a bit bizarre saying that when we’ve had only two draws in 14 games - but the supporters deserve a better level of performance than they got today.
“Montrose had chances as did we and they were good ones. Our finishing has to get better.”
Harsh words indeed from the Ibrox boss – but on a weekend when the attendance of 46,273 eclipsed the combined total of both League Cup Semi-Finals the question on the minds of many was for exactly how long the loyal Light Blue legions will tolerate such displays.
There can be no doubt that Rangers are badly missing the drive and leadership of captain Lee McCulloch – not to mention his tally of 22 goals this season – but for stand-in skipper Lee Wallace there was no hiding from the disappointment he shared with his manager.
“The ,anager had every right to be angry. We’re all sick – the last thing we wanted was a repeat of the Elgin City game.
“We’re still creating chances but we need to be more ruthless, to kill teams off.”
Next up for Rangers is a trip to Tannadice to face SPL side Dundee United in the Scottish Cup, a game in which – for once – Rangers will undoubtedly be underdogs as Wallace acknowledged.
“What’s done is done – we now need to pull together for next week. We need to pick ourselves up. Everyone will be writing us off next week but we want to turn this around.
“There’s been times this season when we’ve been on a par with SPL sides. It’s a massive game.
“We played Motherwell and Inverness Caledonian Thistle earlier this season and there was a fantastic atmosphere at both games. We’ll be 100% focused on the game.”
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