Steven Gerrard says some players need 'home truths' after Rangers' defeat to Dundee United

Steven Gerrard said some of his Rangers players need "home truths" after their defeat at Dundee United, with Thomas Courts saying he had a "winning feeling" this week.

Rangers' 40-game unbeaten run in the Scottish Premiership came to a screeching halt at Tannadice on Saturday, with Jamie Robson's second-half goal seeing Dundee United to victory.

It was a second successive defeat for Rangers in all competitions, having been beaten 2-1 by Malmo in their Champions League third-round qualifying first-leg match last week.

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After the game, Steven Gerrard said six or seven players needed to "raise their level and raise it sharply" and it was a sentiment he echoed after Rangers' first league defeat since March 2020.

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"From our point of view, it was not good enough," the Rangers boss told Sky Sports. "I think over the course of the 90 minutes we didn't deserve to lose the game but you always put yourself in that position if you don't score goals.

"We didn't create enough today and whilst the game is at 0-0 there's always a risk if you get one or two things wrong. The result and the performance is on me and my team. We'll have to accept that and move on pretty quickly.

"I've got belief and confidence in all of my attacking players but that's when we're at our best. Credit to Dundee United for defending well.

"When you suffer a setback, it gives you the chance to reset and give some of the players some home truths. We'll go away and analyse the game. At the moment, we've not got time to feel sorry for ourselves [with the Malmo game on Tuesday].

"We're going to need a far better level of performance to get that done."

Courts: I had a feeling we would win

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Dundee United head coach Courts registered his first win since coming in this summer, doing so in front of a home crowd.

And the manager had an inkling that United would go all the way, telling Sky Sports: "I had a weird feeling this week that we could actually win this game.

"I don't know where it came from and I didn't want to mention it to anyone either in case it made me look foolish after last weekend but I had a sneaky suspicion we could perform this week and thankfully we did that.

Credit to Thomas Courts. No one else has led a team to victory over Rangers in a league match for so long, but his team have. They played really well. They had a lot of quality in their game as well as commitment, discipline, organisation, the subs coming on - absolutely terrific. It's a notable victory for United. There has not been a failure in this United side - Thomas Courts must be proud. Each and everyone one of them are clearly playing for him. Whatever he is saying on the training ground is working well.

"It's a monumental victory. We took a bloodied nose last week but some of the ideas we tried to implement came to the fore today. Perhaps we were better off for what we experienced at Aberdeen. It was a colossal performance.

"When you play against a team of their quality, you know you have to defend well as a team. We managed to get the crowd onside today and it was a brilliant spectacle today."

Boyd: Rangers were beaten by the better team

Sky Sports pundit Kris Boyd believes Rangers switched off at the big moments, and heaped praise on Dundee United for their performance.

"Rangers were beaten by the better team today. They can speak about having ball possession but they were far too slow with it. They switched off at key moments," he said.

"John Lundstram switches off for the goal. I know it's early doors, but he's got a lot to improve. We've seen big names come up here and struggle in the past and he's going to have to up his game. This is Dundee United's day.

"Right from the start, they were aggressive, they were right in Rangers' face, stopped them playing and they well and truly deserved the three points today.

"Steven Gerrard touched on it after the game against Malmo on Tuesday night, that there were six of seven that had to buck up their ideas basically, and that will do them no good today because some of them were way off it again today.

"Dundee United's game plan today was to sit and be difficult to break down and they were excellent. You've got to give a lot of credit to the manager and the staff because you can tell that's a well-drilled team."

Robson: A step in the right direction

Winning-goalscorer and man-of-the-match Robson was pleased with how Dundee United reacted after an opening-weekend defeat.

"It's a massive result and it's a good bounce-back from last week [the defeat to Aberdeen]," he said. "We were disappointed but we came out today and showed what we can do. It's a step in the right direction.

"It was very tough as Rangers are an incredible side but I thought we stuck to our game plan, we stuck by each other, got our goal and I thought we deserved to win it. We defended so well and a clean sheet is massive. It's something to build on."

Speaking about the left-back's performance, former Dundee United midfielder John Rankin added: "Defensively he was assured, he was strong in the tackle, strong in one v one situations, he was never exposed. Going forward, he caused problems. He took the winger back up the pitch, and in the first half, especially, he put umpteen balls in the box.

"For the goal, it's OK getting there but he had the composure to put it past the goalkeeper. I thought he was outstanding today."

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