Former Rangers captain Barry Ferguson has hit out at critics calling Rangers the worst Champions League side ever after they set the unwanted record this week.
Rangers 3-1 defeat at home to Ajax capped off a miserable European campaign, with six defeats, zero points, two goals scored and 22 goals conceded.
While they may have been in a difficult group alongside Liverpool, Napoli and Ajax, Rangers fans would have at least hoped for better performances in their return to the Champions League after 12 years, especially after reaching last year’s Europa League final.
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However, despite their disastrous European campaign, former captain Barry Ferguson has criticised those labelling Rangers the worst team ever in the Champions League, claiming people should be realistic with the team's expectations.
“I am sure the players who have branded the worst team ever in the Champions League- it hurts me to even write such a sentence, hate it even more. Some people need to get real and have a look at the quality of opposition Rangers were up against.
Liverpool-three finals in the last five years, winning one of them. Napoli-top of Serie A and the form team in Europe this season, even if they did lose at Anfield on Tuesday. Those two teams are absolutely top notch.
They are level above the other team in the group, Ajax, but make no mistake, they are also a top class outfit and would have got through many of the other groups had they not been unfortunate enough to land Liverpool and Napoli.”
For Ferguson, it was the manner in which Rangers lost games that disappointed the former Rangers midfielder, with heavy defeats all their opponents in the group stage.
“Gio’s team didn’t land a glove on any of them. Yes, there might have been the odd spell; a decent hour against Napoli at home before a red card and a crumbling. Taking the lead against Liverpool before the roof caved in that horror show of a second half.
That, for me, is the hardest thing to take and it was in evidence again in the final game, which was a match that I thought Rangers could win after the performance against Aberdeen on Saturday and with the atmosphere generated on a bog European night lifting the players who knew they had to avoid that unwanted label."
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