AROUND two hundred Rangers fans demonstrated against the club's chairman, David Murray, at Ibrox last night.

The group of dissenters gathered around the front door of the stadium chanting "Murray out" and "Sack the board" as the club lurched further into crisis.

Murray has borne the brunt of criticism for a perceived lack of investment since eradicating the club's crippling debts. He has recently hinted at selling his stake to anyone "with Rangers' best interests at heart" and a section of the supporters have demanded he finance a spending spree in January or make way for fresh investment.

Paul Le Guen, the beleaguered manager, apologised to the fans for his team's performance. The manager insisted he would not walk away, but was less than emphatic on his long-term prospects.

"I will try to carry on, " he said when asked if he contemplated leaving after the latest defeat. "I'm the manager and it is up to me to cope with the situation. I will not walk away. The only way is to stay together."

He admitted the loss was one of the most profound of his professional career, one that inflicted yet more damage to a reputation derived from three successive championships with Lyon. However, he vowed to continue until told otherwise by Murray.

"I have lost many games before but this is one of the worst, " he said. "It [his future] is not up to me to decide, it is up to him [Murray]. I am very disappointed and I apologise to our supporters because the performance was so poor. We had a correct 30 minutes and after that the organisation was lost. It is my job to be worried about that."

Steven Milne's double consigned Rangers to their first defeat to lower league opposition at Ibrox in their cup history. It compounds a run of results that has left Rangers 15 points behind the defending champions, Celtic, in the Bank of Scotland Premierleague.

Though the focus of the fans' fury was the chairman, Le Guen is not immune to the criticism. He acknowledged the defensive frailty which has been shown almost on a weekly basis but is at a loss to explain the disparity between domestic and European success with the same players.

"Yes, I am aware of the problem but it is not the only one, " he said. "When you lose a game like that you have to react. We have to try our best and carry on but I realise it was so poor."

Owen Coyle, the St Johnstone manager, expressed his sympathy for the stricken Rangers manager but celebrated the vindication of his high-risk strategy of attacking Rangers.

He said: "You don't win three titles in France unless you are a good manager.

"I said before the game that we would give it a go and while by doing so we risked losing by four or five, we showed the first division has good players and good teams."