The Light Blues went down 4-3 in a hard-fought encounter with Liverpool at Firhill, with Rangers set to play Napoli and Ajax in their remaining group stage fixtures.
Speaking to RangersTV after the defeat, McCallum says his side are more than capable of moving into the knockout rounds: “My message to the players after the game was that in every game, with the exception of last week where we weren't as competitive as we would like to have been, we've been a version of what we want to look like. We've been aggressive out of possession and carried an attacking threat as well, but not for the full duration of today or the Ajax game.
“Our message has been to find ways of getting longer within the games where we show what we want to be, being more attack minded and more comfortable in the opposition half. That's something we want to do. We have two games to go and, if we want a chance of qualifying, we need to show we're capable of doing that which I absolutely believe we can. We step into the Napoli game first of all and make sure we give ourselves that chance heading into the last game.”
In a back-and-forth encounter, Rangers clawed their way back from 3-1 down to restore parity in the second half. However, a late Liverpool goal left the Young Gers empty-handed at full time.
He continued: “Frustration is the obvious emotion. In the first half I thought our quality wasn't varied enough, but we also caused them problems as well. I thought in the latter part of the first half when it went to 3-1, because of the manner that we lost the goals, we looked a little bit frustrated and sorry for ourselves.
“But we reset at half time. We reminded them of what challenges we took to Liverpool at different points in the first half and we believed that the game was very much still alive in the second half. That was the key message at half time. At the start of the second with that through ball that puts Robbie [Ure] through on goal, the central defender makes a decision to make contact with him.
“It gives us a foothold in the game in terms of having more time on the ball in areas of the pitch that we want to be in. Ultimately you still need to be good in those moments. We got ourselves back in the game to be level at 3-3. To lose the game is very difficult to take because I don't think that deserved to be the case."
McCallum handed starts to 16-year-old duo Zak Lovelace and Bailey Rice, with the former heavily involved in all three Rangers goals.
He added: “Zak was excellent. I thought he carried a constant attacking threat. When he got his one-on-one moments he always looked like he could cause problems, either by himself or creating for someone else. That's the level of player that Zak can be. We will look to continue to push him to that level.
"Bailey Rice has just turned 16 as well. We challenged him, we knew we could press today. Bailey was going to be pivotal to how we wanted to play. We wanted to get on the ball, but to try and access different areas of the pitch through him. At times he did that, at other times he got pressed, but he's going to learn from that because this level of game is not going to be straightforward all the time. I'm really pleased with him.”
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