Giovanni van Bronckhorst defiant amid Rangers' fans grumbles as he addresses no use of subs in nervy win at St Johnstone

Rangers manager Giovanni van Bronckhorst defended his decision not to make any substitutions during his team’s nervy but crucial victory over St Johnstone at McDiarmid Park.

PERTH, SCOTLAND - MARCH 02: Rangers Manager Giovanni van Bronckhorst during a Cinch Premiership match between St Johnstone and Rangers at McDermid Park, on March 02, in Perth, Scotland. (Photo by Rob Casey / SNS Group)

Glen Kamara’s third minute goal proved sufficient for the champions to prevail in a scrappy contest and keep them just three points behind Celtic at the top of the Premiership table with nine rounds of fixtures remaining.

But there was dissent among the anxious Rangers support as the match wore on with van Bronckhorst ignoring their calls to introduce replacements.

“Sometimes you make changes to turn things around but I didn’t feel we needed to,” insisted van Bronckhorst. “I was just focused to get the win.”

The Dutch coach was vindicated in the end and was gratified with the outcome on a night when he felt conditions were far from in his team’s favour.

“Three points in the bag and go home – sometimes football is like that,” he said. “This was a very tough game with a lot of duels.

“There were a lot of long balls and the pitch wasn’t of the standard we want to play our game. So we had to play a little bit differently and the early goal lifted us up.

“They opened up after that and we had a lot of chances to score in the first half. Alfredo Morelos hit the post, Scotty Arfield had a shot from close range over the bar.

“In the second half, we didn’t give any chances away and we had to fight to win the game - and we did.

“The early goal was important as they started with five defenders and then changed their system. That made it a little bit easier.

“It was a good start but as we have seen before, we had many chances again.

“I think defensively we were very solid and we won our duels. Sometimes a game needs that and this was one of them.

“If you score a goal and you are very ruthless in your defending, you will win the game. Once again we could have won by a greater margin but I am really happy with the points. We needed them.”

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