Rangers’ cup loss hurt players as much as fans – John Lundstram

John Lundstram insists Rangers’ players were as angry as the supporters following the Viaplay Cup final loss to Celtic on Sunday.

The Hoops retained the trophy with a deserved 2-1 win at Hampden Park and the result brought stinging criticism from disgruntled Gers supporters.

Ahead of the visit of Kilmarnock in the cinch Premiership on Saturday, midfielder Lundstram claimed the emotions of unhappy Gers supporters are shared by the Ibrox squad.

He said: “Of course. As players at the end of the day, there’s no one angrier than we are.

“Myself, going home after that, reflecting on it, I was just so disappointed in the performance and the performance levels.

“First and foremost you’ve got to look at yourself, and I have especially.

“I take a lot of responsibility for my own performance. I was hugely disappointed and angry with myself and angry with the team, but we’ve just all got to stick together.

“So yeah, disappointed with the whole result and of course, first and foremost, I always look at my own performance.

“We’ve all just got to stick together. We’re all massively disappointed and it showed the last couple of days. We’ve spoken and we just want to put it right.”

Celtic lead Rangers by nine points at the top of the table and are on their way to also retaining the title, but Lundstram is adamant that the gap in quality between the two clubs is not substantial.

He said: “It’s just the one game. We didn’t turn up and they turned up. I think the combination…didn’t complement each other well.

“We didn’t turn up, they turned up, so it looks like there’s a massive gap.

“It looked like that at the weekend, but in my personal opinion, I don’t think it is massive.”