Under the bus- Beale blames Sakala and his players for Cup Final defeat

Micky Beale threw his players under the bus after losing the League Cup Final to Celtic.

The brains behind the Steven Gerrard management team that won one trophy out of nine had a full week on the training ground to prepare his squad to face the League Cup holders and runaway leaders in the SPFL Premiership.

Beale has undergone a thorough managerial apprenticeship but couldn’t transfer his brilliant ideas into his squad of players as two goals from Kyogo Furuhashi gave Celtic the trophy.

The former Liverpool u-5’s coach has been in charge at Ibrox for three months but had no answer to Celtic’s incisive play around the penalty box with two goals scored from close range.

The honeymoon is now over for the rookie Ibrox boss but rather than accept any responsibility for today’s defeat he deflected onto the players that he selected ahead of Todd Cantwell and Nicolas Raskin.

? @RangersFC manager Michael Beale gives his verdict following Viaplay Cup final defeat against Celtic

“It’s never a good feeling to lose a final.” ??#ViaplayCup | @spfl pic.twitter.com/d6abg8G9Eo

— Viaplay Sports UK (@ViaplaySportsUK) February 26, 2023

24 seconds

We came out for the second half, we had a big chance and we hit the post, we probably should do better in the follow up, that is a big moment in the game.

2 minutes

Listen, again I fink that these games show you how much you have to do. It is fair to say that in the first ferty minutes of the game I wasn’t happy wif our team, we wasn’t happy wif each ofer, we spoke about that at half time.

I fot we showed a better face in the second half, we played with more intensity, we played with more drive, that was wot we wanted to do from the start. That’s happened quite a lot since I came back in, at af time we ad to ave a bit of a sort out in terms of our energy about the pitch and I fot that we lost the game there.

I fot that Celtic were much more energetic on the pitch, they won more duals than us and when their chances come, because there wasn’t a huge amount of chances in the game until the last 10 minutes when there was a few, when the game was like that we weren’t as incisive as them.

No complaints, I didn’t fink that we showed our best face today, so we lost the game.