Should Rangers fans be worried about THESE comments by Steven Gerrard?

Following Sunday’s disappointing loss at Livi, Rangers manager Steven Gerrard has struggled notably with his soundbites for the first time as the strain of being Rangers’ boss may just have truly hit him for the first time.

Speaking in the days since, Gerrard blamed Rangers’ inability to defend at set pieces for the lost goal, despite the free kick itself actually being fairly well defended and subsequent play after that being at fault for the concession.

He then added insult to injury by claiming Livi had failed to cut Rangers open with any good play, despite them arguably doing that a number of times in the match.

For the goal Gerrard said:

“It was always going to be us making a mistake or us giving a stupid free-kick away, and that is what happened and they pounced and scored. They then defended well and we didn’t create enough.”

However, analysis of the goal shows it was actually fairly well cleared by Ejaria, but the follow up passage of play was not defended at all well and Livi attacked with clinical precision.

Then on Livi’s play, the manager added:

“With all due respect, I don’t think Livingston were going to cut us open today with a bit of good play or anything like that.”

While Rangers were hardly up against Barcelona, Livi still managed five shots, two of which were on target, and possession was 49/51. Livi more than gave a good account of themselves on Sunday and deserved more respect than what Gerrard afforded them.

Stevie is new on the job, but you learn much more about your manager and players in defeat/draws than in victory – and we have to be honest, his soundbites following Celtic, Motherwell and now Livi have not been great.

We’ve been full of praise for so much of what Gerrard has done so far, but we make no apology for calling his mistakes, and things he gets wrong.

And hopefully he will turn this stuff around.