Barry Ferguson has 'choice words' for Rangers players as 'brilliant' Dundee win overshadowed by old failings

But the interim Ibrox manager has warned his players that they still need to buck up their ideas as he lamented “old habits” creeping into the team’s play as they twice fell two goals behind Dundee. The Dens Park side also hit the post through Simon Murray which would have made it 4-3 to the hosts in the first minute of time added on. Cyriel Dessers slipped home a winner two minutes later for Rangers, whose fans serenaded Ferguson at the end.

He was, however, not very happy with how his team had performed for long spells of the game. They were 2-0 down after 20 minutes and trailing 3-1 shortly after the hour mark before goals from James Tavernier and substitute Tom Lawrence set up a rousing, end-to-end finish.

“It’s a brilliant three points but overall, certainly the first half, we were miles off it,” said Ferguson. “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…. kick-start 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, 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 is they never give in. This has been labelled at them for a long time now, but I think five or six weeks ago, Rangers would come away with nothing. 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 within the game, 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. We were sloppy, off it.

“Obviously we got the goal back, in at half-time and a few choice words were said. I had to make some tough decisions. I’m not scared to make tough decisions. I’ve said that and they know that. Overall, a brilliant three points but there’s a lot of work to be done still.”