PETER LOVENKRANDS will demand better from his Rangers kids despite their 5-1 Glasgow Cup win over Queen’s Park.

Josh McPake netted twice, while Stephen Kelly, Glenn Middleton and Dapo Mebude were also on target at the Hummel Training Centre.

It was a comfortable victory for the Under-20s as they bounced back from their Reserve League defeat to Ross County but coach Lovenkrands knows the performance could have been even better.

“Scoring five goals and not particularly playing well was the most pleasing aspect,” he told RangersTV. “I thought we struggled at times to get the game plan across that we wanted to do. There was a lot of loose passing, giving the ball away so we didn’t play particularly well. But coming away with a win anyway, and a quite comfortable 5-1, was very pleasing.

“There’s a lot of things we can work on now, that we’ve got to go and look at, but the pleasing thing is not playing well but still getting the victory.

“We told the boys at half-time to settle down, keep a calm head and try and get the ball through to the midfield. We struggled a bit in the first half in finding the gap trying to pass through to the middle, they kept getting intercepted. It was more to try and find that, get a better rotation. We also changed it a bit with the system, just with the personnel, and I think it worked a wee bit better second half. Still, there were a lot of times we could’ve done better and the decision making in the final third could be a lot better.

“I think the pitch had a little bit to do with it. It was tough out there. The pitch was quite hard, it was on the astro as well and we haven’t been on that a lot. I think the boys struggled a wee bit to get a handle of it.

“But that’s not a complete excuse, we were just a bit slack in our mindset I think and in the way we played.”