Rangers captain James Tavernier explains pain of losing to Celtic - 'the fans, ourselves and our families'

Rangers skipper James Tavernier insists Sunday’s League Cup final defeat to Celtic will not knock the Ibrox side off course after recent strides made under Michael Beale.

Dejected Rangers captain James Tavernier feels he and his team-mates let everyone down against Celtic.

The 2-1 defeat at Hampden is the first suffered by the Ibrox side since Beale took over in November. “This hurts for the fans, ourselves and our families," said Tavernier. “We have let a lot of people down and that is what hurts the most. We just have to stay together as a team. We have also made progress. There is still more progress to come. I feel we are going in the right direction.”

The Rangers skipper lamented his side’s slow start. Although a goal from Alfredo Morelos halved the deficit after Kyogo Furuhashi had given Celtic a 2-0 lead, the rousing comeback did not materialise. Indeed, Celtic came closer to stretching their lead.

“Every time you lose a final it’s always a chance you’ve missed,” he said. “We know the heights we can hit. Like I said, you can’t waste that much time in a game before coming into it. That’s the most frustrating part of it. We need to figure out what’s going wrong when that happens and address it.”

He added: “It’s about having chats with each other. It’s something we have to address because the main performance we have shown recently from the start was obviously the game away at Hearts (when Rangers won 3-0). We have shown it in parts of other games. But we need to be really at it from the start. It was a final today and to not be really at it from the start is really disappointing.”

Beale addressed his players on the pitch at the end. Several might only have one more chance to win a major honour at Rangers with the Scottish Cup now assuming even greater importance. Tavernier said needing to succeed in every game was the reality. “You have to show up and we didn’t do that today,” he said. “Now we will try and get the three points against Kilmarnock (on Saturday) and win as many games as possible until the end of the season and see where it takes us.”