MOTHERWELL manager Mark McGhee admitted he was “speechless” after his side were knocked out of the William Hill Scottish Cup by Rangers despite leading the tie with just six minutes to play. Two late goals by Kenny Miller at Ibrox cancelled out Lewis Moult’s header for Motherwell and left McGhee as low as he had felt at any point in his 26-year managerial career.

“I’m sorry, you are not going to get a lot out of me,” he said. “I am speechless. I have only ever felt as bad as this twice in my 900-odd games as a manager. Once at Millwall when we lost in the play-offs and the other time at Wolves when we lost to Crystal Palace in the play-offs. They are the only games that match how I am feeling right now.

“Nobody has said anything after the game, nobody had anything to say. I’ve said to them what I’ve just said to you. They were the only words that were spoken I couldn’t speak for half an hour, I had nothing to say. I am gobsmacked to be honest. It’s just hard, hard, hard to take.”

Miller, meanwhile, expressed his relief at Rangers’ late comeback and set his sights on going on to lift the trophy to atone for the disappointment of losing last year’s final to Hibernian.

“We need to go win the cup, it's as simple as that,” said the striker. “After last year there is an extra hunger. We had a really positive campaign last year in the cup. We had some really good performances, culminating in a really good day at Hampden against Celtic [in the semi-final]. But we never followed it up.

“All that joy and celebration after the Celtic game was pointless because of the fact we never went on to win it. With 10 minutes to go we were 2-1 up in a cup final, but it was really disappointing to lose it in that matter. So we want to go all the way this year and lift the trophy. Today was the first part of that journey.”