Rangers fans booing team because of 'decade of pain', says Steven Smith

Rangers coach Steven Smith has said there must be an understanding of “the pain” fans have had for the last “ten to 15 years” after they booed the team at half-time.

The Light Blues struggled to take advantage against a team second bottom of the league and nervy supporters allowed their anxiety to spill down from the stands on Wednesday night.

The match against ten-man Kilmarnock ended 5-1 and left head coach Danny Rohl bemused by grumbling Rangers fans.

“We know it’s a very demanding support, but one thing I will say is we’re going to need them between now and the end of the season,” Smith said.

“They’re going to play a big part so, the message has been that it has to be everyone together.

“I think there has to be an understanding of probably the pain that they’ve had for the last ten to 15 years.”

Gers captain James Tavernier scored from the penalty spot in the fifth minute after Killie defender Dom Thompson was sent off by referee David Dickinson for denying Djeidi Gassama a goalscoring opportunity.

Striker Bojan Miovski made it 2-0 before new signing Andreas Skov Olsen scored his first goal for the club after coming off the bench.

A blunder by Light Blues goalkeeper Jack Butland in the 84th minute allowed Greg Kiltie to score for the visitors.

However, late goals from Rangers substitute Oliver Antman and Mikey Moore took the Ibrox side three points clear of Celtic, whose game at Aberdeen was postponed due to a waterlogged pitch, and three behind the Jambos.

Rohl, who took over from Russell Martin in October, said: “I couldn’t understand this, I must say this.

“I love our fans, really, but today I was really surprised.

“In the last couple of weeks we spoke about ‘we’, and ‘we’ want to be together, and ‘we’ need the crowd.

“We led very early in this first half and then I was really surprised, but it’s my job then to give my players the right feeling for this game, the right instruction.

“What we saw today is that we have a strong bench now, I think this is crucial

“Some players start, and everyone knows the first 60 minutes is sometimes harder than the last 30 minutes.

“Some players scored, we want to create confidence, give them minutes.

“It’s the reason why I’m very proud of my group at the moment, it’s not about me, it’s all about my group because they deserve a lot of credit for what they did.

“In some moments we forget very soon and very quickly which position we were in 10 weeks ago, and it was not me, it was my group who came from a position we were behind, from 14 (13) points down to three points.

“Maybe this deserves sometimes a little bit of positive energy.”