Mark Warburton last night promised a root and branch review of Rangers absymal 5-1 mauling by Celtic.
But the Ibrox boss won’t be pressured into a knee-jerk player cull in the wake of the derby demolition.
Warburton was left stunned as Brendan Rodgers’ side dismantled his pre-match game plan to go two points ahead of Hearts at the top of the Ladbrokes Premiership.
The victory also left them four points in front of Rangers – with a game in hand.
As the reverberations of the result continue to echo, though, Warburton is determined to stay calm in the face of fan fury over team selection and tactics – while accepting the buck stops firmly with him.
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He said: “We have to look at it, and you have to self-analyse and be self-critical, and you have to react to Saturday but the danger is you overreact.
“There is a fine balance there. We were very aware of being split as a unit, and we didn’t press on the front foot as we normally do – we didn’t show that high-pressing desire in our game, and again that could be a mixed message.
“If it is, that’s my fault, nobody else’s. But the point was we wanted to try to stop balls being fed in and press, and I think we were maybe caught between the two for periods on Saturday. When we did what we do well, Niko [Kranjcar] had a couple of great balls out to Barrie [McKay] and Lee [Wallace] got forward.
“Did we test the goalkeeper enough? No, but we got in good areas to hurt him. We need to look at the individual errors and recognise it was a tough place to go and you have to enjoy those experiences – but you can’t afford to make individual errors.”
Warburton is now under more scrutiny from fans than at any time during his 14 months at the Rangers helm.
But he says he won’t patronise the Ibrox support with lame excuses or cliched talk of taking positives from the match.
He told RangersTV.tv: “I don’t want everyone to be turning round to Rangers fans who pay good money and say there are positives – that will irk straight away.
“The fact of the matter is though, Joe Garner showed aerially, he showed his competitive nature, you saw some of the challenges he went into, he was fearless in his play and he worked tirelessly, he got his goal which was great work by Kenny Miller, and he got that in the right place at the right time, so it was absolutely a positive.
“Josh Windass came in after a five or six week lay-off with a hamstring issue and showed his running power, showed his desire and willingness to get forward and caused issues.
“Kenny too – he was asked to do a wing-back job but again worked tirelessly, likewise Wes Foderingham, so there were positives but you loathe to say that for obvious reasons.”
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