RANGERS manager Steven Gerrard says that Ovie Ejaria has made the wrong move by cutting short his loan spell at Ibrox to return to parent club Liverpool.

Rangers revealed on Saturday that the 21-year-old had decided to return to Anfield following a discussion over his future with Gerrard, having become unsettled in Scotland.

Gerrard said: “Am I disappointed he's gone? Yes. Do I think it's the right decision? No, because I think he had an incredible opportunity here.

“But I'm never going to stand in a player's way who is not happy and who is not settled because I have people who are desperate to wear the shirt and who would run through brick walls to wear it.

“It is what it is. I have to accept the decision. I'm sad about it, I wish him all the best. He's a nice kid, very quiet. He told me it was 100 per cent football reasons and I have to respect that.”

Gerrard doesn’t believe that Ejaria’s decision to return to Liverpool early will make his former club less likely to loan players to Rangers in the future.

“I don't there will be a problem, no,” he said. “That's because we've just sent one player back who's played 25 times, 11 times in Europe, who wore the number 10 for Glasgow Rangers on front of 51,000 people.

“We've got another Liverpool player here (Ryan Kent) who has played probably around 20 times, who has reignited his career after two bad loans. He's doing unbelievably well and I want him fit as soon as possible. He's having the time of his life.

Kids are different, characters are different. I have to accept that.”

Meanwhile, Gerrard says that Rangers moving top of the table means nothing, and he is more concerned with his side developing a killer instinct.

The Ibrox club moved top of the Premiership with a 1-0 win over Hamilton yesterday after Celtic had earlier lost at Hibernian, but Gerrard was frustrated that his team had failed to build on Daniel Candeias’s early opener.

And after relinquishing top spot immediately a fortnight ago after the win over Hearts that put them at the summit was followed up by a loss to Aberdeen and a draw at Dundee, Gerrard is more concerned by the blunt edge to the Rangers attack than the current standings.

“I’m not really interested - with all due respect - in being top of the league right now,” Gerrard said. “We were top of the league before, then went and lost and drew our next two games.

“So, what’s more important to me now is what we can learn from the performance. It’s blatantly obvious we have to learn to kill teams off in the final third.

“I’m happy with the win and the clean sheet but we’ve got a lot to learn in terms of the performance.

“We put 22 corners in today and over 30 crosses. We created enough opportunities and got into some really exciting areas of the pitch. But we had zero killer instinct today. That’s a concern.”

Rangers travel to take on Hibs at Easter Road on Wednesday night, and Gerrard’s frustration at this team’s inability to kill off Hamilton was exacerbated by the fact he was unable to give players a rest in the second half of yesterday’s game as he had planned.

He said: I was frustrated on the side because what I wanted to do, the plan I had in my head, I wasn’t able to do it as manager. That frustrates me because it may affect us in the next game.

“It was good to have Candeias back today, he gave us a lot of energy. We started the game extremely well, which was what we wanted.

“Am I happy we’ll have Alfredo back on Wednesday? Yes, I am.”