Andy Little defended team-mate Neil Alexander following Saturday’s 1-1 home draw with Elgin City – a setback that ended Rangers’ 11-match winning run.
Little refused to lay the blame at Alexander’s door after the Gers keeper fumbled a late free-kick, allowing the ball to creep over the line for an unlikely equaliser.
“I don’t think it’s all Neil’s fault that we drew the match,” said the Northern Ireland international.
“We should have killed it off long before they scored. We shouldn’t even have given away a free kick where we did and then we didn’t defend it properly. So we are not going to blame Neil because he has saved us on a few occasions recently.
“We only have ourselves to blame,” he added.
“When you score an early goal you expect to go on to win comfortably. It’s a team effort and it was disappointing as a team.”
Strangely enough Rangers had made their best start to a game for a number of weeks as Little admitted.
“The ironic thing was we got an early goal after making a good start and that’s something we have not been doing recently,” he added.
“But the longer it goes at 1-0 the more vulnerable you become and the manager warned us about that at half-time.”
Little acknowledged that missed goalscoring opportunities – including his own - had proved costly.
“I had a couple of chances in the second half and some of the other lads had chances too but we didn’t take them. I thought my header was in – but sometimes you have days like that,” he said.
“We should have killed the game off. They were down to ten men and sometimes that can inspire a team. They battled well and in fairness they probably deserved a goal.
“We should have gone on to make it 2-0 or 3-0 in the first half but it didn’t happen.
“We had a lot of the ball but I don’t think we were as threatening as we should have been.
“There are no excuses and we let the fans down.”
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