PETER LOVENKRANDS was proud of how his Rangers side stuck to the task to earn a 1-1 draw with Celtic this afternoon – though he was left frustrated at not being able to claim the win.
The Light Blues were dominant throughout in the City of Glasgow Cup group stage clash this afternoon, but needed a late Ciaran Dickson leveller to claim a point despite getting themselves in positive positions to score on a number of occasions.
“I’m a bit frustrated,” explained Lovenkrands. “When we went 1-0 down, we were the better team on the pitch at that point.
“Okay, it helped with them getting a man sent off, so we had the overload in midfield, but I thought the boys were really, really good.
“The only thing I am really disappointed about though is our lack of knowing and anticipating things in the final third – especially in the box when crosses are coming to the front and nobody is taking that gamble enough for me personally.
“I’ve been there myself and I know exactly what it is like, and that regret of not going there when the ball ends up coming to where you should have been is the worst feeling.
“So these things, I think we need to be better on and we need to work at on the training pitch.
“So we will look at that as a thing we need to work a lot on, but overall, we got the least what we deserved with a draw, but it is a game we should have won in the end.
“We were proud of the effort of the boys and how we got to the final third with the way we were building and our shape and the way we worked our shape was excellent.
“We had some top performances out there as well, but like I said, there’s that bit where you want to win games, and that’s the bit that’s going to take you to the first team if you go and grab the goals.
“Today, we missed that a wee bit and missed that end-product of someone to be on the end of a cross or a pass and be ruthless.”
Going the other way, Lovenkrands was thrilled with ‘keeper Brian Kinnear who made three top saves in the second half, and added: “Brian did really well for us, especially in the second half. When we are pushing to get at least the goal to get back into the game, we’re going to leave ourselves a wee bit vulnerable and open at the back.
“It’s normal, and you expect your goalkeeper to try and help us out, and all credit to Brian as at that bit he was fantastic with some top, top saves to keep us in the game and give us the chance to maybe go and win it in the end.”