Mark Warburton admitted Rangers defeat by a callow Livingston side was unacceptable last night but he said everyone at the club had to look at their failure to lift themselves since their Scottish Cup semi-final win over Celtic.

While Livingston manager David Hopkin justifiably heaped praise on what he described as “the youngest Livingston team ever” and in particular Matthew Knox, saying he was “fighting tooth and nail” to hang onto the 16-year-old who is a Rangers transfer target and was making his first start at this level, his Rangers counterpart was deeply frustrated.

“That’s too easy to say,” he said when it was suggested that they are still suffering a reaction to their victory at Hampden.

“You can use that as an excuse for the game against Hibernian, but today, while we started off brightly, we were way below our level for the vast majority of the game. No excuses, not just the players, the staff in general look at ourselves because that’s not Rangers.

“We’ve got 24 days to get it right which we will do but we have to learn from that. There’s no point sitting here and trying to defend anything. We didn’t deserve to get anything out of the game tonight and that’s not acceptable.”

Neither set of supporters could really be blamed for more than 4000 of the 9500 seats in the Tony Macaroni Arena being unoccupied entitled as they surely are to save their hard-earned for more meaningful battles to come as Rangers seek to complete their unique double by winning the Championship and Scottish Cup while Livingston gird themselves for a play-off battle in their bid to stay in the former.

In its way that demonstrates the challenge facing both sets of players as they seek to generate and maintain momentum respectively ahead of those crucial matches and to that end both managers were obviously hoping the niceties would end with the guard of honour Livingston took their turn to accord the division’s new champions as they sought to avoid defeat for the first time in four matches while Rangers were looking for their first win in the three they have played since clinching their place in the cup final.

As was to be expected the visitors took the early initiative, Kenny Miller teeing up Andy Halliday with a first minute shooting chance that he sliced wide; Craig Halkett squeezing Billy King out as he tried to latch onto James Tavernier’s inviting low cross from the right soon after; and Michael O’Halloran spurning an excellent chance after making a good run into space on the right only to pull his shot wide from 16 yards out.

A well struck Andy Halliday free kick from 25 yards out subsequently skimmed the bar with Livingston ‘keeper Marc McCallum struggling to cover it, however they suffered a scare when Gedion Zelalem conceded possession to Sam Stanton on halfway and he released Danny Mullen who was clean through one on one with Wes Fotheringham but, like O’Halloran, dragged his shot wide.

They were given a further reminder that they needed to make their superiority tell when Stanton’s footwork took him past Ball and into space inside the penalty area on the left but he, too, failed to hit the target.

It was consequently less of a surprise than it would have earlier in the half when from a Matthew Knox free kick on the left just before the break, Halkett rose above the Rangers defence to register the opening goal with a well-directed header which gave Fotheringham no chance as he dived high to his left.

Rangers consequently resumed with a renewed sense of urgency and could have levelled within a minute of the re-start when O’Halloran took on and beat Jackson Longridge to get to the bye-line on the right before firing over a cross to King at the back post, but he miscued his volleyed attempt and he had no luck either with a half-hearted penalty appeal as he tumbled over with McCallum in close attendance as they chased the ball after it ricocheted to the right of the ‘keeper’s goal.

It was clearly not his night since he barely connected with the ball after Miller subsequently got to the left bye-line and cut the ball back to him and he was put out of his misery soon after, making way for Barrie McKay as Warburton looked to up the tempo with his side continuing to have the lion’s share of possession, also replacing Dean Shiels with Jason Holt as the game clock hit the hour mark.

They were almost caught cold once again when Josh Mullen created something out of very little as he pushed the ball past Lee Wallace on the right and showed a good turn of pace to reach it before it went out, putting over a cross which found substitute Liam Buchanan unmarked, but he could not control his header.

Rangers finally forced McCallum into action when Jason Holt drew a decent diving save from him but it was their hosts who had the best of the late chances when Buchanan was released by an early ball, carried it into the box and struck a shot which Fotheringham did well to block.