Dessers helps Rangers to comeback win against Dundee – but ‘old habits’ leave boss Ferguson furious

RANGERS interim boss Barry Ferguson has lashed out at his players for sliding into their bad old ways before coming back from the ded to win 4-3 at Dundee in stoppage-time.

The Ibrox outfit went two down to efforts from Simon Murray and Joe Shaughnessy before a Shaughnessy own goal at the end of the first half gave them a lifeline.

Scott Tiffoney then made it 3-1, but James Tavernier and substitute Tom Lawrence set up a thrilling finale that concluded with Cyriel Dessers scoring a last-gasp winner after Murray had smacked the post at the other end.

Ferguson cut a frustrated figure post-match, though, and admitted there had been some strong words with his side – with much more to come when they report for training this week. ‘It’s a brilliant three points, but, overall, certainly the first half, we were miles off it,’ he stated. ‘You can see in my face it’s frustration. I saw so many old, bad habits come in.

‘I had to make a couple of changes at half-time. I had to change the shape of the team from a three to a four to try to kickstart us, basically.

‘Second half was more like it, but we were giving too many opportunities and easy goals away. We were sloppy at times.

‘I said to them after it that there’s a lot of work needs to happen this week. We need to sit down, go through things and work hard on the training ground because there were a lot of things I didn’t like.

‘One thing about my players, though, is that they never give in. This has been labelled at them for a long time. I think, five or six weeks ago, Rangers come away with nothing from this.

‘The Rangers team I have got just now, my players, that’s the side I’ve drilled into them, but we need to do a lot better with other things in terms of how we approach it from the start.

‘I warned them what it would be like coming here, but we gave Dundee a goal of a start. At half-time, a few choice words were said. I had to make some tough decisions but I’m not scared to make tough decisions.

‘Overall, a brilliant three points but there’s a lot of work to be done still.

‘I’m building good characters just now, but we need to be a lot better within the game. I’m just frustrated because I saw so many old habits creeping back I and I can’t allow that. I told them I won’t accept that.

‘They understand that and know certain the first half was not what I expect. They shouldn’t expect it either. We will get back to work on Monday morning and make sure these habits don’t creep back in.’

Dessers’ winner came on his 100th appearance for Rangers and Ferguson paid tribute to the character shown after he had passed up 11 other chances during the match. ‘You have give the goalkeeper credit,’ said Ferguson. ‘He made some really good saves, but one thing about the big man is that he has been a joy to work with. He is a brilliant worker. Brilliant listener. He wants to improve even at his age.

‘He puts himself in brilliant positions. He can get frustrated and start feeling sorry for himself, but he keeps going. He got his reward with the winner.

‘If he gets criticism from fans or the media, the big man just rolls his sleeves up. If you have that type of character then you get your rewards in the end.’

Dessers admits it was hard to take in the events of a crazy game, but accepts that Rangers cannot keep putting themselves in impossible positions.

‘I can’t fathom what just happened,’ he said. ‘From the first minute until the end, it was a rollercoaster.

‘There was a lot of pain for 91 minutes, but to win feels great. At 2-0 down, it was very hard mentally.

‘The mentality of coming back showed again, but, unfortunately, we’re having to show it too much. It would be a lot easier if we threw the first punch and they had to come back.

‘The winning goal was an amazing ball by Tav. It was carried a little bit on the wind. That’s why (Aaron) Donnelly could only get a touch.

‘My control was good and I could chip it over the goalkeeper. He was a pain in the a** for me tonight and had a lot of good saves but I was happy to beat him in the end. That’s the life of a striker.

‘We never make it easy for ourselves but it’s something we need to learn to win titles or go far in Europe. You need to throw the first punch then play out the game. Too often, we need to go to the last minute, and that should not be necessary.

‘We need to be more mature and start better. That would make our life a lot easier.’

Dundee manager Tony Docherty admitted he found it hard to accept his team had lost at time-up, but concedes they need to stop shipping goals with such regularity.

‘The expected goals for us was 2.8, Rangers was 2.4 and we had numerous chances,’ he said. ‘The overriding emotion is huge disappointment. I can’t focus on anything but the fact we’ve lost a game we should never lose.

‘It tells its own story that we are third in the league for goals scored but bottom of the league for goals conceded.

‘At 3-3, Simon Murray goes through and I think he’s scored the winner. Then we’re picking the ball out of our own net and losing 4-3.

‘It’s really hard to take. Three goals should be enough to win a game.

‘I felt we went a little bit deep. We didn’t get out to the ball quickly enough on goals two and three. We should get more pressure on the ball.

‘The two goals come from 25 yards and there should be bodies there to stop that. Then, the fourth is a sickener.

‘If we keep that consistency of performance but we work harder to stop conceding goals, we’ll be OK.

‘We could have scored more today when you look at the chances, but there’s no feeling sorry for ourselves. There are things we need to accept responsibility for.

‘There are a lot of things we are doing right but there are things we are doing wrong and that’s why we’re in the position we are in. We need to address that.

‘We should be in the position where three goals are enough to win a football match.’