EVERYONE connected with Rangers, players, supporters and management alike, will still be sore from Sunday’s defeat to Celtic. There’s no doubt, it was a real missed opportunity.

The Rangers supporters in particular have been crying out for a bit of joy against their oldest rivals since coming back to the top-flight, and at two goals apiece, in front of a packed Ibrox against 10 men, they must have thought the moment had arrived.

So, it was a real kick in the guts to everyone of a light blue persuasion for the game to end the way it did, but I hope that nobody at the club jumps the gun and decides that Graeme Murty doesn’t now deserve the manager’s job on a full-time basis come the end of the season, and I doubt that will be the case.

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Murty is still a young and inexperienced manager, and there’s no doubt that the man in the Celtic dugout showed the difference that a seasoned manager can make at crucial points in massive games.

Brendan Rodgers was quickly able to deal with the situation when Celtic went down to 10 men, making crucial substitutions which ultimately took the momentum away from Rangers and turned the game in Celtic’s favour. He brought on Jack Hendry to solidify things at the back, but more surprisingly to many watching, he threw on an extra striker in Odsonne Edouard.

Rodgers knew that on most occasions when a team is facing an opponent who have lost a man, the full-backs tend to bomb forward, and that’s exactly what happened to gift Edouard the space to break and get the all-important third goal.

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I would have loved to have seen Graeme Murty make such a positive change as soon as Jozo Simunovic got his marching orders, and send on Jason Cummings to partner Alfredo Morelos and lay down a marker that Rangers were going all out to grasp the nettle when the game was there for the taking.

Instead, he hesitated, handing Celtic the initiative and only calling on Cummings once the damage had been done.

But listen, Graeme is on a steep learning curve as manager of Rangers, and he has handled the task superbly given his lack of top-level management experience. He will learn from this. After all, it wasn’t so long ago that he was in charge of the under-20s, while Brendan Rodgers has been a manager in the English Premier League and worked at clubs such as Chelsea, Watford, Swansea and Liverpool.

And let’s not forget, there’s very little a manager can do when a striker misses a sitter from two yards in the last minute.

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So, while the game on Sunday was in part lost in the dugout, I don’t think you can lay the blame solely at the door of the manager, and I don’t think a final judgment can yet be made on his tenure. All things considered, he has done well to this point.

If he can go on to get second place, with the league now definitely over, as well as make a real fist of it in the Scottish Cup semi-final against Celtic, then he will deserve to be the Rangers manager next season in my book.

And I hope he manages to achieve these things and lands the position. He will be much better prepared next season for experiences like Sunday, and at the end of the day, the last thing that Rangers need in the summer is to rip things up and start again.

I like the solid spine that Murty has managed to build in this side, and by bringing in a lot of Scottish boys who don’t just know what Rangers are all about, but who are good players as well, has improved the team massively.

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They are obviously still a little bit away from Celtic’s level, but on the evidence of Sunday’s performance, not a million miles away compared to where they were at this point last season, and at the beginning of the campaign under Pedro Caixinha.

Hopefully, a few of those loan deals can become permanent moves, and Rangers can avoid the scenario where they are bringing in a shedload of new players in the summer again and starting from scratch. One or two additions to this current squad, particularly in the heart of defence, would make them a really formidable outfit in my opinion.

Everything has been going in an upward trajectory at the club since Graeme Murty took over, and he deserves the chance to keep that going and put into practice the lessons, especially the harsh ones like Sunday’s, that he has picked up along the way.