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The Light Blues stumbled in their bid for Premiership glory after a late winner for the Steelmen
Defiant Danny Rohl is adamant Rangers’ title bid ISN’T over – despite their damaging defeat to Motherwell.
The Ibrox side slipped to third place in the Premiership after a shock 3-2 loss to The Steelmen. Rohl insists it won’t be a fatal blow in the league flag race but admits they now face a mammoth clash with Hearts at Tynecastle just to keep themselves in the hunt.
Rangers fought back from being 2-0 down to Jens Berthel Askou’s side in Govan to level at 2-2. But while they searched for a winner, Emmanuel Longelo struck late on for the visitors to silence the home crowd.
The result put a huge dent in Gers’ title chances but Rohl remained upbeat and warned their rivals it’s not done yet.
They’re four points behind leaders Hearts and a point off Celtic – before playing both of them away in their next two games.
But the German said: “I’m disappointed, there’s no question over that.
“We could have won this game 4-2 or 5-2 even if the first half wasn’t what we wanted.
“We changed something (at half-time) and it had a great impact.
“Look, this is football – that’s why sometimes we love the sport and sometimes we hate it.
“But the most important thing is that it’s not over. It’s really not over.
“I saw the picture from our fans at Falkirk, the flag saying Keep Believing.
“This is the right time to lift this slogan with emotion. Really, we will keep believing. Otherwise, it’s difficult.
“We have four more finals, four games to go and it’s our job.”
Motherwell raced into a two-goal lead at Ibrox through Lukas Fadinger and Longelo.
For 45 minutes, Rangers were second best but after THREE changes at the break from Rohl, they stepped up a gear.
Youssef Chermiti and Nico Raskin levelled it up and there were further chances for Thelo Aasgaard and Mikey Moore.
But it was Askou’s men who secured the points when Longelo’s 90th minute effort deflected off Emmanuel Fernandez to beat Jack Butland.
Afterwards, Rohl felt his side deserved a penalty when Fadinger fouled Djeidi Gassama on the edge of the box.
Rangers got a free-kick but VAR failed to send ref Kevin Clancy to his monitor for a second look.
Rohl said: “We weren’t concentrated on our front-foot defending in the first half.
“That’s the reason why they sometimes had an overload on the centre.
“We were a little bit too slow in the last line to push up and mark them. We had to be more aggressive but it was difficult.
“But it’s also part of the story that Motherwell were really effective.
“I don’t know how many big chances they had, even in the first half?
“And I have to say, the foul on Gassama is for me clearly on the line. His foot is inside (the box) but they didn’t look.
“Maybe I’m wrong but please look back and you’ll see I’m right with this.
“But I don’t want to make excuses, we still had enough chances to turn it.”
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