McDowall: It could've been worse

Kenny McDowall admits Rangers were lucky only to ship four goals as the shambolic Light Blues sank 4-0 to Hibernian at Easter Road on Saturday.

The Ibrox side suffered their heaviest hammering at the hands of the Leith men since being beaten 5-0 back in January 1912.

It was another black day for the League One champions just a week after boss Ally McCoist was sent away on garden leave.

But McDowall - now in charge for the remainder of the season - could do nothing to save ragged Rangers as he took over the reins for the first time.

And the interim boss said his side were just fortunate not to have been hit by an even bigger drubbing.

He told the Rangers website: The only positive I can take at this moment is that we managed to keep it to four but we'll analyse the game next week.''

Rangers were a mess from start to finish. They allowed David Gray an age on the edge of the box to fire Hibs in front ahead after seven minutes.

The back four were all over the place as Steve Simonsen wandered off his line for Jason Cummings' second.

And the visiting fans were streaming for the exit as Alan Stubbs' men put a shine on their win with two fine goals from Scott Robertson and skipper Liam Craig after the break.

The defeat leaves Rangers 15 points adrift of Hearts in the race for automatic promotion and McDowell apologised to the travelling Light Blues faithful forced to watch another nightmare display.

He said: It wasn't an ideal start - two down after 12 minutes and we failed to recover from that.

For me personally, I'm disappointed for the support who came all this way and we've let them down.

Normally you get a response when there is a change in management but that didn't happen for us.

I can't take anything away from Hibs, they were the better team and wanted it more than us.

It's very easy to say we should have responded differently when we went a goal down and yes things should have been different.

We'll have a wee look at it on Monday but we are disappointed with all elements today, especially the outcome.

We've got to keep going and take it one game at a time, the next match is Dumbarton at home and we'll look to go and win that match and try and get back to winning ways quickly.

Any game would do us next, after the result today we need to just play again and get the next match out of the way - anything would be welcome.''

Hibs are now just four points behind second-placed Gers and boss Alan Stubbs is determined to catch them.

However, he does not believe Rangers are a spent force, either as a team or a club.

He said: Yes I do think they will be stronger come the play-offs. They are a huge club and they are obviously going through a tough time at this moment in time. But they will come again.

They are going to have ride the flak which is going to come their way, batten down the hatches and take it on the chin, but Rangers will always be a big club.

They are good players, international players, not bad players, just suffering at this moment in time from confidence and everything that is going on off the pitch.''