Rangers boss Steven Gerrard has slammed Joe Aribo and his teammates for their unimpressive showing against Bayer Leverkusen on Thursday.

Aribo and his teammates fell 1-3 to the German side in the first leg of their round 16 Europa league clash at Ibrox, with Super Eagles midfielder playing for 54 minutes.

Gerrard was not satisfied with the product performance of his boss and blamed them for showing too respect to their opponents.

The former English midfielder added that his side have big mountain to climb in the return fixture in Germany.

“They’ve got quality players, we know they’re a good team. I think we had a rally good shape about us in the first half, but we showed them a bit too much respect.

“In the second half we were more aggressive, more on the front foot.

It’s not “At 2-1, you’re still thinking it’s not the end of the world, but I’m extremely disappointed with the third goal.

“[The second leg] is going to be extremely tough, we knew it would be. But we’ve got a very important game at the weekend, we need to get recovered for that. We’re disappointed to lose the game.”

Rangers who are due to play Celtic on Sunday have now suffered their first home defeat in any European competition since 2011-12 Champions League qualifying (0-1 vs Malmo), ending a run of 17 games without a loss at Ibrox (W12 D5).

They have now lost consecutive home games in all competitions for the first time since March 2018.