James Tavernier: Rangers must look at themselves ‘as men’ ahead of Old Firm game

Skipper James Tavernier insists Rangers’ players have to look at themselves “as men” as they bid to end a dismal Old Firm run against Celtic on January 2.

The Light Blues go into the first game of 2025 at Ibrox 14 points behind the William Hill Premiership leaders after a 2-2 draw against Motherwell at Fir Park on Sunday.

It was a second successive game where Rangers’ first-half display was way below par following the 2-1 defeat away to St Mirren on Boxing Day and Philippe Clement’s men had a second-half double from substitute Hamza Igamane to thank for the point, although it did not assuage the criticism from the travelling supporters, many of whom feel the Belgian’s time at Ibrox is up.

The former Genk, Club Brugge and Monaco boss is looking for his first Old Firm win at the seventh attempt as Gers boss – his side did come close when they lost the Premier Sports Cup final to Brendan Rodgers’ side only on penalties earlier in the month – and Rangers have gone seven games against Celtic in total without a win.

Looking ahead to what promises to be a tumultuous afternoon in Govan, Tavernier said: “We were unlucky in the final, going all the way to extra time.

“So we’re just going to go into this game and we obviously need to address what we need to do before Thursday, and really look at ourselves as men, and as a team, to put things right.

“It’s obviously an Old Firm, against our biggest rivals and a home game.

“So we have to go back to what we were doing better before these two games, and that’s play better as a team, defend as a team and be clinical.

“I can only apologise to the supporters because in the past two games, we’ve wasted 90 minutes on two halves where performance level is not us, and that’s unacceptable.

“So you can understand the boos. We set standards and we’ve got to maintain those standards and if we don’t, then they fully have the right to let us know and we knew it wasn’t good enough.

“And this is the thing, we just can’t waste time on the pitch. We’ve got to be at it for 90 minutes.”

Clement added tiredness to illness and injury as reasons why he made seven changes to the side, claiming that Igamane and winger Vaclav Cerny were unable to start the match due to fatigue before he had to bring them on at half-time in a bid to rescue a dire situation.

However, Tavernier said: “Well, if you look at the running stats, I don’t see any of that.

“You’ve seen that the lads were pushing completely to the end, to the final whistle.

“But it’s small details, about not giving goals away and being more clinical in their box.

“We maybe rushed a bit too much in the second half when we got level. We could have maybe asked different questions, maybe moved the ball a bit more around the box, and it’s just small details like that, that makes a difference.”