Rangers were held to a 1-1 draw this past weekend by Blackburn Rovers and Steven Gerrard was very unhappy with his team’s performances.
The Gers manager sent out a warning to his players warning them to stop being sloppy and error-prone during key stages of games – something that they were guilty of during the past season.
Gerrard said: “I was pleased with a lot of our play, although disappointed with the outcome in terms of the result.
“We had enough chances throughout the game to win it. We were very comfortable in the first 45 minutes and even at the start of the second half.
“However, making the substitutions meant we lost a little bit of organisation and shape and we obviously turned the ball over in a crucial area of the pitch and we paid for it.
“The two learning points we can take from the game is that we have to be more ruthless in front of goal when we are playing well and are in control. We have to take our chances and kill teams off.
“It’s also pretty clear that if you turn the ball over in the wrong areas of the pitch against good players and good teams you can pay for it.
“We’ve experienced that before, against teams like Aberdeen and Hibs last season, so it shows that pre-season has been really good so far but we still need to learn and improve.
“We hammered that message home at half-time and before the game, we said Blackburn have good players and they play in a competitive league so it’s very important we were at it all the way through.
“We made the players aware that if you do make costly errors, good players will punish you – and that’s what happened.”
Rangers lost some key points last season before the players failed to hold their nerves during crucial moments of the match.
And many experts believe Steven Gerrard would have had a far better first season if the Gers weren’t so sloppy. So clearly the manager is now desperately trying to fix this situation before the 2019-20 season begins.
