Monday 12 September 2016 22:55, UK
Mark Warburton has challenged his Rangers players to make their critics eat their words after reading "poisonous" criticism of their Parkhead defeat.
Celtic ran out 5-1 winners on Saturday over 10-man Gers, who had Philippe Senderos sent off in the second half.
And the Ibrox boss has already used the media analysis of the derby defeat to fire up his players for the rest of the Premiership campaign.
"I told the players that I was warned not to read the papers, but I thought 'no, I will read the papers', and you see some of the poisonous, mischievous dialogue that is written, and that just burns in your memory and that is something we will use," he told Rangers TV.
"We need to turn it around and we will turn it around quickly, and while I won't use the exact words I used with the players, we will make sure the people who are writing what they are writing right now come to eat those words.
"Right now, we have got to bite our tongue. As a Rangers fan, player or staff member, whatever it may be, right now we eat humble pie, as the fact is we lost 5-1 on Saturday, but that will live in the memory in terms of what's been said and we will certainly utilise that going forward."
The Rangers boss is also adamant that the 5-1 scoreline was misleading and instead was a consequence of trying to get back into the game before being reduced to 10 men after the sending off of Senderos.
"We have gone through it at length with the players today and all weekend, as you can imagine. It wasn't a 5-1 game - we know that and that was the decision we made to try and get something from the game," he said.
"We could have sat in and taken the 3-1, but nothing is gained by that. We have the hurt of a 5-1 but we know it wasn't a 5-1 game. However, we made some individual errors, and while in the first half hour they had more possession, it was pretty much nip and tuck and we were comfortable, before we then made some pretty basic errors.
"The sending off was foolish, and Philippe knows that. He did the right thing by coming and speaking to us immediately, and a man of his experience and integrity knows it was the wrong thing to do, but that definitely put us on the back foot, no doubt about that."
Warburton says the challenge for his Rangers players now is to learn from the mistakes made in the defeat and is keen to see them start matches at a better tempo.
"We went in [at half-time] at 2-1 and the message was that we had been four or five out of 10, and yet it was 2-1. We came out and I thought we started the second half really well - really, really well.
"It's well documented now that Barrie [McKay] had a great effort that missed by an inch, and that was a big game-changer, but then we were sloppy. We made individual errors and, as a group, it's not about digging out the one individual - it's about a group and knowing we need to be collectively better.
"We learned that we have to go into games on the front foot more, be bolder and utilise our attributes in terms of going forward and being positive and decisive.
"Did we do enough of that? No, but when we did you saw the end result. The disappointment and frustration is obvious, the fans were magnificent and they will be hurting from that, so we are very conscious but we are well aware we will be better for it."
