Jon Flanagan confident that there's no defensive '˜crisis' at Rangers

The left-back and his fellow defenders looked vulnerable throughout Thursday’s 4-3 Europa League defeat by Spartak Moscow and manager Steven Gerrard pinpointed poor defending as the reason for their setback.

It was a first European defeat in 12 matches this season and some strong defensive showings had been the cornerstone of that unbeaten run.

So Flanagan believes there is no major issue and nothing which cannot be rectified when Motherwell visit Ibrox in the Ladbrokes Premiership on Sunday.

The former Liverpool player said: “Individually a few mistakes cost us, myself included. So I think it’s just getting back to the basics.

“I don’t think our confidence has gone. It’s just cutting out individual mistakes, and we need to work together better.

“Defensively it wasn’t good enough on Thursday and hopefully we can put that right.

“It was basic errors in defending. It’s not a big crisis about defending, it’s just getting the basics right and hopefully we get them right in the next game.

“We were up three times in the game. We can’t go over there and concede four and expect to win games.

“Collectively, defensively it wasn’t good enough. We will look back and see where we went wrong and improve.”

The defeat sent Rangers falling from the top of Group G to third but only two points separates the four teams with the Light Blues set to play Villarreal at home and Rapid Vienna away.

“It’s still wide open,” Flanagan said.

“It’s a tight group and we are still in with a chance of qualifying. Next game we will look to put it right.”