Steven Gerrard has warned his Rangers players they will be replaced if they do not respond to their Betfred Cup semi-final defeat to Aberdeen.
Gerrard’s hopes of leading the Ibrox side into his first final as a boss were ended with a 1-0 loss as Aberdeen midfielder Lewis Ferguson headed home a late winner at Hampden.
The Light Blues had only one of 15 shots on target and Gerrard admitted that his side were not good enough.
“This one will hurt for a good while,” said the Rangers boss.
“It’s Aberdeen’s day, we wish them well. They deserved to go through because they created that bit of magic in the business end of the box and they punished us on a set piece, so we got what we deserved.
“I pick the players, I sign the players, I set the game plan so I’ll take responsibility for this but what I’ll assure everyone is that won’t be our last semi-final.
“Without a doubt we will be back in semi-finals and if the players we have now don’t improve and start producing the quality in the final third my job is to go and find the players that will do. Otherwise we’re never going to win anything.”
Umar Sadiq made his first start up front for Rangers with Alfredo Morelos and Kyle Lafferty unavailable and Gerrard said they were “sorely missed”.
“To be fair to Umar in the last two or three weeks he’s shown signs and improvements,” Gerrard said. “Whether that’s enough we’ll have to judge that moving forward.
“We can’t point fingers and blame Umar, the only thing I’d say to him is when you go round the keeper stand up and put it in the back of the net, don’t dive or you’re going to get a yellow card.”
Derek McInnes believes his Aberdeen can now “absolutely” go on to lift the trophy.
The Dons boss saw his side lose both domestic finals to Celtic the season before last but believes they are now capable of stopping the Hoops in the December 2 showpiece.
He said: “We were up against the best Celtic team of a generation that year, they were outstanding. I do feel losing the two finals that year was tough on us.
“Do I think we can beat Celtic over a cup tie? Absolutely, but for us to win the League Cup we’re going to have beaten Hibs, Rangers and Celtic in Edinburgh and Glasgow. It’s not going to be easy but we’re 90 minutes away from doing it.”
McInnes admitted Aberdeen were fortunate to win when not at their best.
He said: “It was always going to be a tough task for us. I thought we would of had to play better than we did, truth be told, to win the game but I knew we had to defend well and show enough resilience as we have shown in the cup and thankfully that part of the game has got us into the final.”
Aberdeen have faced criticism for their league form this year but McInnes insists their recent drop in form is only a blip.
“We’re judged and criticised at times for not beating the Old Firm,” he said.
“There was a time not so long ago where Aberdeen couldn’t even beat Inverness and Ross County, with the greatest respect. At least we’re putting ourselves in a position to be criticised.”
