Barry Ferguson admits Rangers star made 'silly' error that must never happen & pops back at Celtic hero dig

Barry Ferguson says he’s had a chat with a Rangers star after a poor moment vs Aberdeen - as he pops back at a Celtic hero.

Hoops legend Chris Sutton accused the interim Ibrox boss of waving the white flag of title defeat by making nine changes to his side. The team have a Europa League quarter-final second leg with Athletic Bilbao on Thursday, following a 0-0 draw in midweek.

A 2-2 draw with Aberdeen has Rangers 15 points behind Celtic with 15 left to play for. Ferguson has responded directly to Sutton by popping back with the assertion he takes no notice of such comments

Rangers boss responds to Celtic hero dig

He said to the Rangers Review: “Look, I have no issue. Everybody has an opinion. When people say things like that, I don't really take an interest. I've got a decision to make. I'm carrying a lot of injuries. There was a number of players having to be left behind. There were actually a number of players on the bench that probably I shouldn't have had on the bench. So I've got decisions to make as a manager. But the team that I put out in my mind, in my opinion, was good enough to come up here and try and get the team points.”

Silly sending off

It was made a tougher afternoon for Rangers in the first half when Ross McCausland was sent off for a sliding tackle, while already on a booking. Jimmy Thelin’s hosts were already leading via Leighton Clarkson’s free kick while Pape Habe Gueye made it 2-0 to Aberdeen.

Ianis Hagi and Hamza Igamane goals salvaged a point, delaying Celtic’s title party, but Ferguson has had to speak with McCausland over a decision that must never happen. He said: “Good comeback from our point of view. Silly sending off. I spoke to young Ross about it. He understands that when you get a yellow card you can't make a challenge. I've no complaints about the second yellow, but maybe I should be looking at that when they did get the first yellow.

“I was thinking in my mind that I maybe make a change. But listen, I didn't. Ross got sent off and then we have to go back to what we did on Thursday night. I have to make a few changes at half-time and I thought those changes certainly kicked us on a bit. Overall, I'm never really happy drawing again, but under the circumstances, we've got to get back down the road. I'm pretty pleased.

“I'll take spirit. Probably in a couple of days I'm going to get good news from the medical staff if I'm going to have another three or four players fit and available. I'll just need to wait and see. But one thing about them is, I questioned it last week against Hibs, I questioned the character and the desire. We all know what happened on the Monday. Certainly, the last two games have shown that they've certainly got that. We've got to play better, but we've got to try and keep 11 men on the pitch.

“That's becoming a recurring theme. So if we have 11 men on the pitch, then we'll get a better chance of winning games. But when you go down to 10, I thought they stuck together. I thought they worked ever so hard. You have to surrender a lot of possession, but they were willing to do that. I said that you have to sacrifice that. Hopefully, we'll get that couple of chances, and we got a couple of chances. We obviously stuck them in the back of the net.”