Ally McCoist slams Rangers recruitment and the one Champions League stat he found 'difficult to accept'

Ally McCoist believes poor recruitment was one of the major factors behind Rangers' miserable Champions League campaign that earned them the worst record in the tournament's history.

A 3-1 defeat to Ajax at Ibrox on Tuesday night left Giovanni van Bronckhorst's side bottom of their group on zero points from their six matches and with a goal difference of minus 20 to claim the unwanted worst-ever tag from the Dinamo Zagreb side of 2011-12.

The Dutch champions, along with fellow group rivals Liverpool and Napoli, proved several classes above the Glasgow side, but McCoist admitted he found it "difficult to accept" statistics that showed Rangers were outrun by the opposition in every match.

The Ibrox legend told talkSPORT: "The level of one or two of the performances were completely unacceptable. Out of the whole campaign I can only really remember a reasonable hour against Napoli at home and an acceptable 45 or 55 minutes against Liverpool at home.

"Recruitment from Rangers has not been good at all. You lose Bassey to Ajax, you lose Aribo to Southampton, you lose Patterson to Everton, you lose Balogun - who for some reason wasn't offered a contract - to QPR, you lose your best centre-half through injury.

"You end up playing against Ajax in the Champions League with a young kid at centre-back accompanied by a midfielder on loan. You have no chance, absolutely no chance.

"There have been a couple of statistics that disappointed me but the big one is the running stats. In every game, the opposition have run more than Rangers. I find that difficult to accept particularly when you don't have the majority of possession.

"If you have that then common sense would indicate the opposition have to run about more than you, so Rangers' running stats should have been better. They've been poor.

Rangers winger Ryan Kent looks dejected after the 3-1 defeat to Ajax at Ibrox that sealed the worst record in Champions League history. (Photo by Alan Harvey / SNS Group)

"A bigger concern for me would be Rangers' level of performance at Celtic Park in a couple of league games. The results in the Champions League have disappointed me, one or two of them have shocked me, but I'm not overly concerned or surprised both teams have finished bottom of the group."