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Sluggish Rangers pass up another opportunity for silverware. Rangers passed up the opportunity to win their first major trophy in nine years at the SMISA Stadium in Paisley last night as they went out of the BetFred Cup in a shock defeat to St Mirren. You have to go back to March 2011 the last time Rangers reached and won a League Cup final. On that day goals from Steven Davis and Nikica Jelavić ensured that Walter Smith had a successful final visit to Hampden as Rangers manager. Davis, the only survivor from that game, was on the scoresheet tonight, but his goal could not stop Rangers from defeat. With Celtic humiliated in the previous round against Ross County, the odds on Rangers securing their first major trophy in almost a decade looked favourable. But with St Mirren on an undefeated run stretching back to 24 October, this tie always had the potential to be tricky. Denied the services of Alfredo Morelos thanks to Clare Whyte, the SFA Compliance Officer, Gerrard introduced Swiss striker Cedric Itten. The big striker has arguably made a decent claim for a starting berth of late. Morelos’s folly at Tannadice on Sunday gave him his opportunity. It is hard to argue that he took advantage of it. It is hard to argue that he took advantage of it. Gerrard also introduced Calvin Bassey, Bongani Zungu and Scott Arfield in place of Borna Barisic, Steven Davis and Glen Kamara. Rangers accepted the two game ban for Morelos without complaint, but it is hard to imagine that many at Ibrox will miss Whyte when she vacates her role early next year. You won’t find anyone at Ibrox defending Morelos’s actions at Tannadice, however the fact that he was booked for the incident has raised further questions about consistency when players are cited for retrospective action. But despite no Morelos, Rangers, who were sporting their new retro kit, didn’t take long to take lead thanks to Connor Goldson. The Englishman has been in about the goals this season and he added to his impressive tally after a superb run and finish in the sixth minute. From that point Rangers displayed the type of possession football that has typified their season so far. There were opportunities to extend the lead in the first half, and Cedric Itten had a header cleared off the line as Rangers looked to put this game to bed. However St Mirren were awarded a penalty after 39 minutes after Calvin Bassey brought down Jamie McGrath. Kent was careless with possession in his own half, the transition caught out Bassey and McGrath converted the resultant spot kick to put St Mirren level. Rangers started the second-half sluggishly and allowed St Mirren to take the lead on 52 minutes through McGrath again. Dylan Connolly somehow managed to get a weak cross past Bassey and Balogun, and McGrath took advantage of some even more comical defending to pass the ball in from six yards. From that point on Rangers looked lost and struggled to get back in the game. Gerrard used several substitutions in attempt to reboot his players but it seemed all was lost until the dying minutes of the match when James Tavernier hit another superb free-kick which hit the post, only for Steven Davis to rifle in the rebound past a despairing Jak Alnwick. At that point it felt like Rangers had saved themselves and that extra-time was inevitable. But further poor defending allowed St Mirren to score in injury-time through Connor McCarthy. Allan McGregor pulled off an excellent save to deny a Tait header, however the rebound fell at McCarthy’s feet who rifled in from short range. The defeat is a crushing blow to Rangers, who were overwhelming favourites to win the tournament, and Steven Gerrard couldn’t hide his disappointment after the game claiming his players had missed a “big, big opportunity”. "What they have given me this season has been outstanding. As a group we've enjoyed praise, so we're going to have to take what comes our way, which will be the complete flip of that. We deserve that", he said. "We've dominated large parts of the game in terms of possession. We haven't built on the first goal and we've concede three sloppy goals. We've got two choices now - we either show a reaction from this and use the disappointment in a positive way or we let it fester and it carries on to the next game. "At times you're going to get a bump on the road. My job's to pick this group up now. We haven't felt this for a long time, so it's important we react in the right way." ST MIRREN: Alnwick, Tait, Mason, Shaughnessy, McCarthy, Fraser, Doyle-Hayes, McGrath, Connolly, Erhahon, Obika SUBS: Lyness, Flynn, Foley, MacPherson, McAllister, Durmus, Dennis, Erwin, Jamieson RANGERS: McGregor, Tavernier, Goldson, Balogun, Bassey, Arfield, Zungu, Aribo, Roofe, Kent, Itten. SUBS: McLaughlin, Helander, Hagi, Defoe, Davis, Patterson, Kamara, Barker, Barisic. REFEREE: David Dickinson

Unless you only discovered football in the last three months you already know that nights like this are part and parcel of football. Unless you think the rebuilding job at Rangers is complete then you will already know something like this would happen at some point. Stay calm, retain composure, the next game is just around the corner. No one said it would be easy.

Now if you were ever in any doubt that marijuana fucks with your mind, and that this damage increases exponentially with the amount you consume, I give you the following.... Celtic superfan Bob Marley recorded Old Firm matches Stuart MacDonald Thursday December 17 2020, 12.01am, The Times Football Bob Marley taped Old Firm matches when he was touring in Europe and took them home for his son Rohan to watch https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/scotland/celtic-superfan-bob-marley-recorded-old-firm-matches-5d2kpw6jz Bob Marley was a fan of Celtic FC who kept videos of their Old Firm matches and would regale his children with stories about the club, his son has revealed. Rohan Marley told how his father would tell them stories about the famous Lisbon Lions team who won the European Cup in 1967. The musician taped Old Firm games while touring in Europe and took them home for Rohan to watch. Rohan, 48, said his father’s love of Celtic inspired him to attempt to become a footballer and he once tried to get a trial with the club. In an interview with the Celtic View, he said: “I always loved Celtic, they were one of my father’s favourite teams. He would talk about Celtic and that’s how I came to know them. I was young but I just remember him loving Celtic and telling me about them winning the European Cup. When he was in Europe, he was able to see a lot of the big football games on TV. “He watched a lot of English football and Scottish football. He would record all the games and I watched them years later at my grandmother’s house. That’s how I came across all these Celtic players from the late 1970s and early Eighties because I’d watch these tapes of Celtic versus Rangers games over and over again.” The Jamaican businessman, a former American football player, added: “He played all the time as well. I can remember playing with him when we were young. My granny actually had a tape of me and two of my brothers, Ziggy and Steve, playing keepy-up with him. We used to stand in a circle and try to juggle the ball with him.” In his autobiography, the Celtic legend Dixie Deans said Marley once told him his ambition was to visit Celtic Park. The singer, who died aged 36 in 1981, stunned Deans when the pair met in Australia. Deans said Marley told him: “I’m a big Celtic fan. I would love to go to Scotland to see Celtic Park and kick a few balls there. I know all about Jock Stein. Celtic has always been my team.” Actually, Marley died in May 1981, so one wonders what equipment he used to record and transport all those matches in the 1970s...

There is no shame in the fact that rotating away at grounds like that are a risk. They haven’t been beaten by more than a goal against Rangers or Celtic at home in at least a couple of years I think. We needed a Barisic free kick to win it last time and we were at full strength that time. Football isn’t that black and white, some clubs make themselves very hard to beat on their own ground with a good manager.

..Yes i know, but it had to be done. Struggling to remember any real stand out player from this game ,but Tav , far from his best, gets my vote.

Don't do it Frankie, it was our first defeat, you'll get over it.? .

Of course it wasn't just that tactic alone! the whole team was poor and maybe too many changes to the starting team?. I always say we should play our strongest team in every match, if you want to win it! the other problem is giving fringe players game time, however if you start with your best 11, don't believe in resting players, and get a couple of goals up you can then change out some players, having said all that the 11 who started should have been good enough to win that match, the players let the manager down, I don't think you will see SG making that mistake again. Onto Saturday now and winning that sees us 16 pts in front in the league.

Short answer for a new member. I question why you would join this forum and offer very little knowledge about the Most Successful Football Club in the world and express more curiosity about what we think of their worthless, tainted titles (or tables?), unless you are one of them.

The next few games will be very revealing and should tell us where we are on the path to recovery to trophy-winning status. Was it just the inevitable stumble of an otherwise successful side? Or did it expose something more fundamentally wrong? The answer will dictate what we achieve this season.

Of course.

Thanks for that mate - a nice wee addition to our post-match content... https://www.gersnet.co.uk/index.php/news-category/match-analysis/1270-sluggish-rangers-pass-up-another-opportunity-for-silverware @Rousseau, can you please make sure these reports are published if I'm not around?

No, if we're going to rest David/Kamara, we need Jack back because Zungu isn't there yet.

FFS! some of the reactions on here are utterly ridiculous! we were pish tonight it happens, we didn't deserve to win it, St Mirren battled for their lives. I am gutted as well as I am whenever we lose, but we need to get a grip! could have been worse it could have been a league match.

We've been saying that our bench/squad looks strong this season. If we can't rotate against the likes of St Mirren, we obviously don't have a strong squad at all. A few players didn't play well last night, Gerrard couldn't find a way to fix things and St Mirren did their job - that's why we lost.

I shake my head every time our team appears and we're wearing white socks with the home shirt. The world would be a better place without white socks. I know St Mirren (and Dundee Utd) wear black socks but what's wrong with red?

And there were so many televised Celtc matches that coincided with Marley's UK visits during the 1970s, of course...

Not convinced itten offers more after last night. Let's hope defoe does better on Saturday

Basically Goodwin's tactics were to put a man marker on Tav and you more or less stop our main threat which i think proved successful.

A poor team selection leaving Davis, Kamara and Barasic out, this wasn’t E Fife we were playing.

The left side of our team failed last night(includes Balogun) which was obvious by half time,when Borna and Kamara should have been brought on.Zungu did not look at ease in the weather condition,and is nowhere near cover for Jack. I fear we will be two players short on Saturday with the disgraceful tackles on Arfield and Balogun,the latter should be a stick on for the CO but won't hold my breath.

My brother is well acquainted with said product

After a night's sleep ... I still have to remember hard to find a game where a team went out as "physically" as St. Mirren did last night. Initially I thought the ref would step in when he booked one of theirs early on, but it went on and on and on, which eventually allowed the St. Mirren chaps to become ever bolder. Right to the point where that clown Goodwin screamed at the ref when Roofe was kicked by two of his charges right in front of him, demanding a throw in. The "assault" on Balogun wasn't even a foul, mind you. That was stuff w ewere used to in League 1 and the Championship, both in terms of tackles and refereeing. Generally, I try to look at a game from various angles and thus not only from a Rangers perspective. I see quite a bit of the latter here and on FF, when people lay into our people like there is no tomorrow, blaming solely us on what befell us last night. IMHO, that's just half the tale. Anyway, going into that game I thought the line-up was good enough for the Buddies, indeed rather attack-minded. Despite their close attentions, we played well enough, indeed played not much different throughout the game than we did before in other games. What caught my eye rather early was that Aribo is still at 75 % of his best, he was loosing too many tackles and 50/50s. Likewise, Kent was rather ineffective and that went on till the last minute (maybe credit to the St. Mirren defenders). In that respect, we were almost 2 men down throughout. I only noted that Bassey was actually on the park 5 mins before their penalty. Maybe we are used to the presence of Borna on the wing, but on that side little went on - of course, Kent was running around everywhere. Zungu did his job, but there is a difference between him and Kamara, who's ball control and eye for a pass is right now much better. Maybe SG has to ask himself if the combination of Arfield and Zungu was too bold from the start? For that defensive/creative department, combined with Aribo, provided little for Roofe and Itten to work with. Speaking of Itten, he was sure up for the physicality and - as opposed to what others thought - was doing his job quite well. As was Roofe, though both were usually outnumbered. That he midfield was not working became apparent when we reverted to long balls far too often, essentially going down to a playing-level St. Mirren are familiar with. So I had hoped that we remove Aribo and Kent early in the 2nd half for Defoe (with Itten going left) and Hagi for Aribo, as well as getting Davis and Kamara on for Arfield and Zungu. When part of that materialized, it was too late. Davis and Kamara restored some order in midfield though. My personal "icing on the cake" was that cross into the box for 3-2, when Davis clung to the right post, moved away a little, but when the danger persisted, he went back to that place. Yet Kent on the left post was running away from that job as soon as the ball was half-cleared (20 secs in), leaving McCarthy stealing in the score almost unapposed. While I don't want to single him out, he sure contributed rather little yesterday, yet was kept on for the whole game. As is often the case. Alas, Saturday is not that far away and given that the Scum aren't playing a league game, we can stretch our lead at the top further. You would hope that this defeat was a timely reminder what has to be done in the future.

It's a simple one no one gets rewarded for failure get them into a frame of mi d for their next match rewards for failure never .

Hagi’s game time has been very limited since September. I find it really frustrating, Kent isn’t exactly on fire so there shouldn’t be the huge reluctance to give Hagi a chance. He has proven end product, all the stats show that. He has 5 league assists from almost half the game time Kent has had, who has 3.

'Momentum' but - even if (and that's not a given) they win their 2 games in hand they will still be 7 points behind us. They will have to beat us at Ibrox and then there is still 4 points. What happpened to "We welcome the chase"?

I'm going for Goldson because his goal was the best thing about last night's performance.

Is there an option for none of the above? I don’t think anyone deserves it.

So difficult. I went with Davis. Played a lot better than the rest of the midfield when he came on and got the goal. It says a lot for the rest of them if a late sub is MOTM.

Leeds United served up a good display of attacking football last night meanwhile the special one was having a right good moan after losing to the scousers and a first class result for the toffees

It was another game where SG's subs and their timing didn't work. Kent and Itten weren't doing much and Bassey had a bit of a nightmare. Waiting until the 82nd minute to bring Hagi on wasn't great. I'm wondering whether Gerrard will win a trophy with Rangers. This was probably the easiest chance, so far but we blew it again.

I've been trying to temper expectations for a while. I was worried we were getting ahead of ourselves. Nothing has been won yet. We will get these games; we'll get more of them before the season ends. This is more of a scunner because it's a missed opportunity to win a trophy. St Mirren are a bit of a bogey side for us. I think we should remain calm and direct blame to where it's deserved: @ian1964's bad juju posts.

Good can and should come of it too. I thought the complacency was clear in the team selection and in the performance and work rate and that needs to go from both management and players for the run of games we have coming up. Perth and Paisley are very difficult away days this season despite the fact they don’t look it on the face of it. Celtic will very likely win a trophy this weekend too and I think there’s a good chance that will cause them to become complacent again and believe that they will come good.

I trust you've all had a good nights snooze and calmed down , we got beaten we have to accept defeat graciously not like other teams now we get up get dusted down and get on with the main project winning the blinking league

Poor collective peformance but not as surprising as some think. The mileage on the clock, the constant starting XI changes, etc., a slip-up was due and even likely at some point this month. As SG says, it's how we react to it that is important. You can see the narrative that is being prepared on the other side of Glasgow. In the space of 4 days we go out of a Cup and they win one, serial losers/winners. They know how to win and expect us to slip up again soon, bla bla....... We have a difficult run of fixtures coming up either side of New Year. The norm once a long run of wins come to an end is a blip over several games. We can't afford that and are fortunate to have an out of sorts Motherwell coming to Ibrox this weekend. Therafter things get more difficult and it would be good to get Ryan Jack back playing asap. Huge period coming up where the players will have to prove they have the various qualities needed to win a League title.

Itten did really disappoint after the glimpses we had of him previously.

Well you, if not in those particular words. May I remind you that the fhilth play for a trophy at the weekend, and that tonight's result will be a major fillip. I fear that they will win, and build on that with confidence. I fear that they will gain momentum. I fear that we will look on wondering, again, where it all went wrong.

Always will be just 7 in my head. This should also be in the players head to

I don't get all this fucking attacking Rangers as soon as we lose a match! we have no right to win every match, it happens

As once displayed on a banner, rather die with our history than live with theirs. Not much more to say, even if we never win another trophy, that sentiment still stands, and I don't know of any Rangers fan who would think differently.

He's like one of those young lads who's practised abstinence before his wedding night he will burst the dam against the horrid hoops and blow their heads off with a hatrick