“Heartless. Passionless. Leaderless. Not Fit To Wear Our Colours.”
That was the strongly-worded message sent by the Rangers travelling supporters to their team as caretaker boss Steven Davis turned to the club’s youngsters to stop the bleeding against St Mirren.
Much has been said about the Ibrox side’s shoddy summer recruitment, with players such as Cyriel Dessers and Sam Lammers receiving plenty of criticism for their early-season performances.
On this occasion, it was time for the likes of academy starlets Zak Lovelace, Ross McCausland and Bailey Rice to step up and prove are more than capable of making a telling contribution at first-team level.
The visitors strolled to a 3-0 victory in Paisley and leapfrogged their opponents into second place in the table after after taking advantage of Ryan Strain’s straight red card for a deliberate handball on the half hour mark.
Gers captain James Tavernier converted a first-half penalty after Strain was given his marching orders by referee Nick Walsh following a VAR review of the incident.
Saints keeper Zach Hemming made a number of important saves, but the Light Blues doubled their lead when Abdallah Sima slotted home with 20 minutes left to play and Tavernier’s thunderous strike in stoppage time wrapped up maximum points to round off a challenging week for the club, both on and off the park.
Here’s our post-match player ratings following the narrow victory in Paisley:
Unused subs: Robby McCrorie (GK), Ridvan Yilmaz, Dujon Sterling, Ben Davies, Cole McKinnon.
1. Rangers player ratings vs St Mirren - gallery (GlaW)
2. Jack Butland - 6/10
Didn’t have a great deal to do after making a few comfortable saves early doors. Will be pleased he wasn’t called into action too much.
3. James Tavernier - 9/10
Superb performance from the skipper who notched a brace and led by example. Tucked away the spot-kick and was strong defensively. Exceptional strike for the third.
4. Connor Goldson - 6/10
Picked up an early yellow card after a clumsy foul on the edge of the box. However, he wasn’t seriously troubled after the break and kept things neat and tidy.