FROM the high of the Old Firm game, Wednesday night was a huge comedown for Rangers and their supporters.

There was so much expectation going into the match and the team were riding the crest of a wave, but as I warned in this column a couple of weeks ago, feet should have been firmly on the ground because there is still such a long way to go.

Losing the very next league game has taken away from all the good work that Rangers did by beating Celtic.

Don’t get me wrong, Kilmarnock are a good side and have now won their last six at home, so they are no mugs, but the manner of the defeat after being in front and flying was so disappointing.

It’s no good not having a failure against Celtic if nobody gets pass marks against Kilmarnock. In terms of attitude, Rangers were spot on in the Old Firm game, but that was far from the case at Rugby Park, and that inconsistency will cost them.

I thought Rangers actually started the game against Kilmarnock well, and for the first 20 minutes the tactics looked to be working. Going into the match, I thought it would be difficult for Steven Gerrard to find a system that could accommodate both Alfredo Morelos and Jermain Defoe up front, but up until Rangers lost the equaliser they looked good.

Rangers could even have been more than a goal up in the early stages and the signs were encouraging, but that all fell apart a bit after they conceded a terrible equaliser.

Joe Worrall will know exactly how sloppy he was, nobody needs to tell him. It was schoolboy stuff. He has to learn from it.

After the shock of losing that goal when Kilmarnock hadn’t really been in the match to that point, you would be looking for Rangers to up the pace and up their game, but it only rejuvenated Kilmarnock and from then on they played very well.

You know what you are going to get from Killie. Steve Clarke has got them very fit, and very well organised, and Rangers really toiled after the goal.

Suddenly everything was a struggle. Passes were going astray, final balls into the box were poor, and eventually another bit of sloppy play costs Rangers again.

The manager told his players beforehand not to play any daft square passes on that surface, but that’s exactly what Ryan Kent did to give up possession, and from then on there was no way that James Tavernier could get back at Jordan Jones before he scored.

But while the two individual errors were really sloppy and undoubtedly were costly to Rangers, I think the bigger concern for Gerrard will be the lack of leadership that was shown after his team had come up against a bit of adversity.

The captain has come out after the game and called the performance embarrassing. But what Rangers need is players on the park to stand up and be counted when things aren’t going well.

There’s plenty of experience in the team now, and there should have been players grabbing their teammates by the scruffs of their necks and giving them a shake when it all started to go downhill. There doesn’t seem to be an awful lot of that going on at Rangers when the chips are down, and it is sorely needed.

When you have been on such a high and then are faced with such a low, you need people in your side that are going to get you going again, and unfortunately there didn’t seem to be anyone in a Rangers jersey capable of doing that at Rugby Park.

The game all rather fizzled out, and it was far too easy for Kilmarnock to just drop everybody in behind the ball and defend their box.

The post-mortem will go on until the Livingston game and the manager’s tactics and individual errors will be blamed, but a lack of leadership and consistency in terms of attitude are more pressing concerns.