- Rangers women miss out on four-peat after 2–1 defeat to Glasgow City in Sky Sports Cup final.
- Leanne Crichton and Nicola Docherty rue “messy” display and underperformance.
- Focus shifts to league title chase and Scottish Cup after Fir Park disappointment
Rangers women failed in their quest to make it four consecutive Sky Sports cup wins in a row on Sunday.
Leanne Ross’ side were victorious thanks to two goals in two minutes from Lisa Forrest, the sister of Celtic veteran James Forrest.
Katie Wilkinson pulled one back for the Blue Belles late on, but it was too-little-too-late as they relinquished their grip on the League Cup.
Rangers women fail to impress
Crichton lamented her side’s “really messy” performance but that she believes her side did not deserve their defeat.
“I don’t think we did enough to win in 90 minutes,” she explained.
“But I certainly don’t think we deserved to lose.
“Every time we’ve played City this season, there’s only been a goal of a difference.
“It’s a sore one that we are the side that need to deal with that.
“We now need to use this as the bounce back to try to do better.”
Gers captain Nicola Docherty also lamented the sides underperformance.
“The disappointment comes because we’ve not performed how we know that we can,” she revealed.
“We’ve not really shown a good account of ourselves on the day.”
The result came just a week after Rangers defeated their Glasgow rivals in the league, adding to the skipper’s frustration.
“We were brilliant against the same opposition last week, so I’m unsure what’s happened today,” she said.
Hope for silverware remains
Rangers now turn their attention to clawing back the gap between themselves and City in the league.
Crichton believes her squad have the mentality to bounce back and claim the Premier League crown.
“We’re very positive in the sense of where we are this season and where we want to go,” she said.
“We’ve now got the league title that we need to go and chase down.
“It’s not going to derail the season.”
This was echoed by Docherty who said her side “need to be ready for Wednesday” and “need to win” their next match with Partick Thistle.
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A major blow for the women, but this is still a season where they can defy the odds and claim silverware despite a summer fire sale of key players and managerial upheaval.
New Rangers chairman Andrew Cavenagh said that moving forward the ladies’ will continue to be backed.
He said: “We continue to believe that the team has tremendous operational and financial upside.
“We are exploring ways to best unlock that potential.”
Rangers also have a Scottish Cup semi-final against Montrose on May 5 after City face Celtic at Hampden the day prior.
