GRAEME Murty, the Rangers interim manager, last night admitted his side had got lucky in their 2-1 win over Hibernian at Easter Road.
Neil Lennon's side dominated the Ladbrokes Premiership match and took the lead when Lewis Stevenson netted a deflected striker early on.
But the Edinburgh club failed to convert their chances after they were made to pay for their lack of ruthlessness when Josh Windass and Alfredo Morelos scored two goals before half-time.
But Murty, whose side has now recorded four consecutive victories for the first time in a year, confessed the Ibrox club were fortunate to prevail.
‘I'm delighted with the three points," he said. "I endured that more than enjoyed it. The lads showed good spirit, battling nature. Hibs imposed themselves upon us and we reacted for long spells.
"We didn’t deal with the ball well enough to alleviate the pressure so I changed the shape to get us on the ball more.
"You need resilience. We invited a lot of pressure on to ourselves. Players need to make challenges, win headers. We did that, although we did ride our luck at times.
"We had chances to cause problems on the break, but we were too loose and slack with the ball. When you do that, you invite pressure. But winning here while not playing our best? You’d take that."
Kenny Miller was stretched off early in the first half after suffering a suspected hamstring strain, but Murty stressed it is too early to say how long the experienced forward will be sidelined for.
"It looked particularly painful," he said. "We were affected by Hibs far too much, rather than the loss of Kenny."
Murty also admitted that Rangers may have been lucky not to have a penalty awarded against them after substitue David Bates appeared to handle the ball late on.
"I couldn’t see it, but the reaction of the crowd tells me something happened," he said. "If they’re given, they’re given. If we’ve got away with one, so be it."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel