Mark Warburton Urges Rangers Not To Forget Losing Feeling

Mark Warburton wants his Rangers players to remember the feeling of defeat following their 3-1 Scottish League Cup exit to St Johnstone at Ibrox.

The Light Blues had gone on an 11-game winning run since the Englishman took over in the summer and the first loss was down mainly to a dismal first-half performance.

Goals from midfielders Murray Davidson and Simon Lappin gave the Premiership side a comfortable interval lead in the third-round tie, with Steven MacLean also missing an open goal.

Michael O'Halloran added a third seconds after the restart, with right-back James Tavernier's strike for Rangers in the 61st minute ultimately no more than a consolation.

Former Brentford boss Warburton said: I thought we were sloppy in the first half. We were two down at half-time and you can't give a goal away straight after half-time.

After that the reaction was good but we have to learn from the first half.

We had one bad half of football early in the season at Brentford and we referred back to that every single week - if we drop our standards that will happen. That could be our first half here.

That feeling in there now, we don't want that again. We had a 10-minute discussion about that, it is how we deal with it. But I think you will agree we kept on playing, probing and trying to play the right way.''

St Johnstone go into the quarter-final draw next Monday following their first away win of the season.

Boss Tommy Wright was as pleased with the way his side defended as with the way they attacked.

He said: I am delighted. It is nice to win a cup tie and put in a performance like we did.

We fully deserved it. Possibly we could have had a third goal before half-time with Steven MacLean's chance but I am really pleased with the way the players applied themselves.

We came with a plan and limited them to very few clear-cut chances.

We defended more like we can defend when we had to. Hopefully that will give us confidence to go on a run.''