STEVEN Gerrard last night praised the ruthlessness of his Rangers team after a 7-1 defeat of Motherwell at Ibrox moved them to within two points of Ladbrokes Premiership leaders Celtic.
Doubles from Scott Arfield and Eros Grezda and goals from James Tavernier, Alfredo Morelos and Glenn Middleton saw the Glasgow club record their biggest win under Gerrard.
The Liverpool great refused to speak about his team’s prospects in the league - or the controversial red carding of Motherwell midfielder Carl McHugh in the first-half.
His opposite number Stephen Robinson was sent to the stand by referee Craig Thomson after McHugh received his second booking.
However, Gerrard was delighted at how his side took the opportunity to move closer to both Celtic, who are ahead on goal difference, and second-placed Hearts with a clinical victory.
“I am very pleased with the players and I am very pleased with the result,” he said.
“It was a really good reaction from Thursday night (Rangers lost 4-3 to Spartak Moscow in a Europa League game in Russia).
"We asked the players to bounce back today and put on a show for the supporters, we certainly delivered that.
“That’s what I have been asking for from the players right from the start. We’ve used the words ‘ruthless’ and ‘relentless’ and that’s what we were today.
“We tell them to forget the scoreline, don’t think about the scoreline, and just keeping playing and pushing until the final whistle."
Gerrard added: “I said to them at half time ‘we are 3-1 up, they are a man down, what are we going to do?’
“I asked if they were going to continue to get carried away in a fight and in the emotion of it all or if they were going to be calm, if they were going to place with a precision and a tempo.
“I told them we would get opportunities to make the scoreline as big as we wanted and the players have delivered.
“Sometimes when you are playing the last fixture of the weekend and other teams win it adds pressure and you have to handle that and cope.
“Over the weekend it’s been the opposite. Teams around us and above us have given us an opportunity to close the gaps and that really helped us before the game.
“We told the players there was an opportunity for them. We told them to put a performance in that showed they are desperate to stay in touch at the top."
Asked whether Rangers could maintain their title challenge, he said: “I don’t really want to talk about that now. I think there will come a time for that.
“All we need to do is focus on the next game and this is Livingston. We have been really strong at Ibrox as you saw again today.
“The only thing I will be focusing on is Livingston and getting three points to try and stay in the mix while Europe is going on. Let’s assess it at the right time. It’s not the right time now.”
Robinson claimed Alfredo Morelos had "conned" match official Thomson when McHugh picked up his first yellow card.
"The first booking is a disgrace," he said. "It’s embarrassing. And I have to say referees are getting conned by the same people.
"He has to send him off after he has booked him, but he shouldn’t have booked him.
"Having said that, it certainly wasn’t the reason we went on and lost six goals. I think a lot of people are looking for excuses today. I am certainly not going to hide behind a referee. We can do so much better than we did defensively. It was hard to take for 45 minutes.
Asked if had spoken to the referee afterwards, he said: “I think it’s best I don’t speak to him.
"Listen, members of their (Rangers) staff came up to voice their opinion, that was it. I was the only one who got sent to the stand.
"There is a young boy (Craig Napier) who is out of his depth as a fourth official. He obviously can’t deal with it. That was it.
I didn’t think it was a major incident. Steven even said ‘don’t worry about it, I’ll sort it out’ He told his staff to sit back down again’. I didn’t think it was a major incident.”
“I am not going to talk about individual players. Certain players get away with certain things every week.
"It wasn’t a free-kick in the first place, it certainly wasn’t a yellow card. He (McHugh) was given the yellow card for continual fouling. But that wasn’t a foul. So work that one out.”
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