Dundee 2-1 Rangers: Graeme Murty says manager delay no excuse for 'unacceptable' loss

Graeme Murty has lost two of his four matches in charge since Pedro Caixinha was sacked by Rangers

Caretaker Rangers manager Graeme Murty insists the delay over appointing a permanent boss is no excuse for their latest defeat at Dundee.

Friday's 2-1 loss followed a 2-0 home defeat by Hamilton last Saturday.

Pedro Caixinha was sacked four weeks ago but Rangers appear no closer to appointing the Portuguese's successor.

"To play for Rangers, you need to be intrinsically motivated to meet the expectations of the club, regardless of who is in charge," Murty said.

"No disrespect to our opponents, but if we are serious about getting back to the top of Scottish football, we need to be winning these games.

"We have had more than enough in both games this week to win them, but we haven't executed to a high enough standard, and I include myself in that.

"We need to be better than we are doing currently. That is not good enough, that is not where we want to be. We need to get better.

"Do the players need a lift from a new boss coming in? They look like a group that need to lift the fans that will turn up at Ibrox on Wednesday for a massive game against Aberdeen.

"They need to be ready to put on a show, put on a performance. That is their challenge now. They can't control anything outside of the group. They need to make sure when Wednesday comes they go and execute better than we did today."

The performance at Dens Park mirrored Rangers' loss to Hamilton and the recent Scotitsh League Cup semi-final defeat by Motherwell, Caixinha's penultimate game in charge.

Rangers enjoyed the better first-half chances but could not convert them. Although Josh Windass quickly levelled after Mark O'Hara's opener, they never looked like finding a second equaliser after O'Hara struck again 10 minutes from time.

Earlier on Friday, Aberdeen boss Derek McInnes sought to end mounting speculation about his future, with the former Rangers player heavily linked with the vacancy in Glasgow.

"The right person needs to come in and the appointment will take place as soon as the board see fit but we haven't helped ourselves," Murty told BT Sport.

"We've just added fuel to the fire, as it were, by that performance there today and coming away empty-handed when we could've taken more.

"The last two results aren't acceptable for this football club and we all, collectively, need to do better."

O'Hara's winner took his tally of goals against Rangers in 2017 to three

Rangers trail Hibernian, who visit Hamilton on Saturday, by a point and second-placed Aberdeen by three points, with Celtic nine points ahead of their Glasgow rivals at the Scottish Premiership summit.

However, the Dons have a game in hand - at Kilmarnock on Sunday - and face Rangers at Ibrox on Wednesday before meeting them again at Pittodrie next Sunday.

Dundee assistant boss Graham Gartland hailed a tactical substitution by manager Neil McCann that paid immediate dividends when Scott Allan created the winning goal for O'Hara.

"We changed our system to get Scotty on," Gartland told BBC Radio Scotland. "We went to a three and put Scotty in the hole.

"It's a great ball and Mark O'Hara is a goal threat. He obviously scores a lot against Rangers but we think he can score more goals in this league. He took his two goals brilliantly, one with his right foot, one with his left.

Neil McCann's Dundee moved a point above Partick Thistle

"We believe in what we're doing. We actually showed a lot of resilience tonight. We went 1-0 up, and we were down a man when we conceded the goal - [Faissal] El Bakhtaoui was down injured in the corner.

"That was a bit of a kick in the teeth, but we responded and scored and then we see out the game, against a very good Rangers team.

"They pushed us and played some lovely stuff at times. But when you see out a game like that, and you have defended well, the strikers get confidence in the back four and think, 'if we nick one, we will win the game'.

"And then the strikers relax in front of goal and hopefully put away more chances. So it has a knock-on effect on both the back four and the front men."