McLeish demands 'angry' reaction

Rangers manager Alex McLeish has called on his players to make up for a dismal showing in Prague with a resounding second leg revenge victory.

McLeish made no attempt to disguise the 2-0 defeat by Viktoria Zizkov in the first leg of their UEFA Cup first round clash as a major disappointment.

Rangers conceded a goal in each half, saw a Barry Ferguson penalty saved and had a last-minute away goal from Shota Arveladze chalked off.

In addition they lost Mikel Arteta to injury before the game and Craig Moore during it, with the second goal, which may prove crucial, coming when Rangers were down to 10 men.

McLeish said: “We have to bounce back. I want to see an angry reaction from the players. I don’t want them feeling sorry for themselves.

“We will have to make up for it. The fans who came here to Prague – they have to make it up to those guys.

“I want them to be big enough to handle what happened tonight.”

Rangers trailed as early as the seventh minute when Ales Pikl headed in a free kick.

McLeish said: “I am very disappointed with the Rangers performance tonight. We are capable of playing so much better than that.

“We got off to the worst possible start when we lost a goal to a set-piece, which was one of the areas that we thought Zizkov would be strong.

“They have good delivery from set-pieces and we asked the players to be very aware when in such situations.”

Overall, it was a lifeless performance and McLeish was at a loss to explain why it had been so.

He said: “I don’t know why. The goal seemed to deflate our lads. We looked for a positive reaction and we didn’t get that.

“We looked a bit one-paced in the first half. I have rarely seen my team play so poorly since joining Rangers.”

Delighted Viktoria coach Vitezslav Lavicka was keen to play down the potential significance of the win ahead of the second leg.

He said: “It was not an easy game for us. Rangers are a very dangerous team but tonight they played against good opposition. Rangers could only do what we allowed them to do.

“But we know that in Scotland Rangers will make it very difficult for us. Two goals is not enough for us to be sure of going through.”

But he did concede that should his side make it through to the next round it would represent the biggest achievement in the club’s 99-year history.