SLP: Rangers boss blasts players

Rangers goalkeeper Stefan Klos has revealed that manager Alex McLeish let his players know exactly what he thought of their failure to beat part-timers Berwick.

The Second Division’s bottom club stunned Scotland by holding the Ibrox millionaires to a 0-0 draw at Shielfield Park in the third round of the Scottish Cup last night.

Klos was a spectator for almost all the game and did not have a save to make as the Borderers were forced to defend.

But Rangers failed to score despite having Tore Andre Flo, Michael Mols and Claudio Caniggia on the pitch, even before they sent on Shota Arveladze, Ronald de Boer and Andrei Kanchelskis as substitutes.

Klos said: ‘‘We should come here and expect to play much better because we are Glasgow Rangers but we didn’t do that. We now must do it at Ibrox.

‘‘It never got any easier for us as the game wore on and they played with more and more players behind the ball.

‘‘We couldn’t find the space to play and the manager was very upset at the end of the match. I think everybody who saw the match would agree that wasn’t the Rangers you normally see.’’

It was the second time this season that Rangers had struggled against a lower division team in a cup competition.

In November, in the CIS Insurance Cup at First Division Ross County, a comfortable 2-0 lead was almost surrendered in stoppage time.

County pulled a goal back and then Lorenzo Amoruso was sent off for conceding a penalty that

Klos managed to save to win the tie.

He sighed: ‘‘I don’t know why we find it difficult against outfits from the lower divisions. It’s strange.’’

Rangers were never in danger of suffering a repeat of the famous loss at Berwick in 1967 and Klos reckoned the set up of the competition helps the bigger teams.

He said: ‘‘A lot of big teams go out early in the German Cup. There is a rule in that competition that you play extra time and penalties in the first round.

‘‘There are more of the bigger sides going out in the early rounds there, but I didn’t think that would happen to us.

‘‘We were thinking we might be the ones to score. We have a lot of quality players who can do something in a one-on-one but it wasn’t to be.’’