Graeme Murty criticises Josh Windass’ display in Rangers win

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Glasgow Rangers safely booked their spot in the next round of the cup, with Josh Windass inspiring the Ibrox side to a 3-0 win.

Graeme Murty, perhaps surprisingly, told Sky Sports’ live post-match coverage of Rangers’ Scottish Cup tie with Fraserburgh (broadcast on 31st January 2018 from 19:00) that he was actually not particularly happy with Josh Windass’ performance in the 3-0 win.

The Gers avoided a potential banana skin as they ran out victors against the Highland League side, and while a number of players impressed on a difficult night where conditions threatened to level the playing field – that, literally, was anything but level – it was Windass who stole many of the headlines.

The Englishman scored all three goals to bag an impressive hat-trick to ensure that Rangers will travel to Ayr in the next round next weekend. But while most would expect Murty to be delighted with the forward’s performance, the Gers boss admitted that he was less than impressed.

“Not really,” he replied when asked by Sky Sports if he was delighted with the form he’s showing.

“There’s three good goals but I’ve spent 20 minutes telling him turn forward and run forward. I thought he spent a lot of the time not actually engaging their backline. When he engages the backline, he’s a massive threat. We spoke about it with him in the week. He’s good in one v ones, he’s a very good finisher. We want him to be using that more often rather than actually dropping deep and creating the play, he needs to trust our players to get the ball to him in dangerous areas.

“When he gets that ball, then he can accelerate the game. When he accelerates the game, he’s brilliant to watch and he’s really, really ruthless as well, so we want him to do that more, but three goals, he’s quite happy in the changing room.”

It was always going to be a difficult night for any of the Rangers players to emerge with any credit unless Murty rang the changes and a number of the academy prospects got a chance to sign.

A Gers side filled with first-team players – even if many of those were peripheral first-teamers – would have been expected to win comfortably. And while it was not always completely comfortable, they got the job done, and Windass was a key reason for that. But perhaps the Ibrox faithful can take some encouragement from the fact that Murty is not entirely happy with a performance that saw the 24-year-old score three times.