Michael Beale on why Rangers should have beat Hibs 8-1 and 'people are playing for their futures'

Rangers boss Michael Beale believes his side created enough chances in the 4-1 win over Hibs to win by an even larger margin.

The Ibrox side made it 15 games unbeaten in the Premiership at Easter Road, responding to an early setback to score twice in each half. On the night they peppered David Marshall’s goal with 31 shots from all angles. It rivalled the team’s last outing in Edinburgh when they defeated Hearts 3-0 as the most complete performance since Beale took charge.

"It was very equal to the last time that we were in Edinburgh across the city,” he said. “The energy was right from the first minute, I thought the front three pressed really well, the midfield backed it up behind and the one poor moment on the night was how we defended the set play. Our organisation was wrong for the first goal but after that, and even before that, I thought some of our play was good. Certainly after that we were excellent. We scored four and probably should have scored double that and that is not being disrespectful. We missed big chances tonight. Had some fantastic play and the energy was good.

“Away from home when teams come for us and open, Hibs tried to attack the game, if we’re defensively strong and we regain the ball in interesting areas we can punish teams, that was maybe the story of the game. Defensively, as impressive as we were with the ball, it all came off the work ethic of the whole team, the whole outfield players pressing, running and moving together.”

Beale’s optimism is further enhanced with players continuing to return from injury or get back up to full speed ahead of what is going to be an important final few months.

“The league form has been absolutely fantastic, we shouldn’t have a problem with belief, we just don’t want the Jekyll and Hyde performances,” he said. “Now we’re getting people fit, John Souttar and Ridvan played 45 minutes yesterday so they’re available from the weekend. Rabbi Matondo is back available and you can see although Ianis Hagi has been out for a year, he’s slowly getting back in and around the group. There’s a lot of competition, people are playing for their futures and for minutes right now."