Managerial saga no excuse for Rangers collapse against Dundee
Caretaker boss Graeme Murty insists Rangers' on-going managerial saga is no excuse for their latest slip-up at Dundee.
It is now a month since Pedro Caixinha was sacked but Rangers appear to be no closer to appointing the Portuguese's permanent successor.
And that indecision now appears to be seeping onto the pitch after the Light Blues followed up last week's shock loss to Hamilton with a 2-1 defeat in Dundee.
Mark O'Hara, who netted in each of Dundee's home clashes with the Glasgow club last term, grabbed another two goals either side of Josh Windass' response to hand Neil McCann's side just their third win of the season.
But Murty issued a stark warning to his players as he urged them to sort themselves out ahead of next week's crucial double-header with Aberdeen.
''To play for Rangers, you need to be able to motivate yourself, be intrinsically motivated to go and meet the expectations of the football club, regardless of who is in charge,'' he said after his team missed out on the chance to overtake third-placed Hibernian.
No disrespect to our opponents, but if we are serious about getting back to the top of Scottish football we need to be winning these games.
We have had more than enough in both games this week to win them but we haven't executed to a high enough standard, and I include myself in that. We need to be better than we are doing currently. That is not good enough, that is not where we want to be. We need to get better.
Do the players need a lift from a new boss coming in? They look like a group that need to lift the fans that turn up at Ibrox on Wednesday for a massive game against Aberdeen.
They need to be ready to put on a show, put on a performance. That is their challenge now. They can't control anything outside of the group. They need to make sure when Wednesday comes they go and execute better than we did today.''
Rangers had the better of the chances during the first half but were punished on 66 minutes when Danny Wilson allowed Jon Aurtenetxe's free-kick to bounce off his shins, with O'Hara slamming home the loose ball.
Windass responded almost immediately for Rangers as he slammed home from 20 yards out but O'Hara again came back to haunt Murty's team as he was picked out by substitute Scott Allan for the winner with 10 minutes left.
Dundee assistant boss Graham Gartland now hopes the victory can prove to be a turning point.
''You hope it's a springboard,'' said the Irishman. ''We have probably played better than that at times this season and not won.
So the performances have been there and you just hoped the results would follow.
We showed resilience tonight and to see out the last 10 minutes without giving up a chance was great.''