Furious Rangers fans have taken aim at captain James Tavernier after he admitted that his side 'are not good enough' when teams put them under pressure.
The 28-year-old used his programme notes before Wednesday night's shock 1-0 home defeat by lowly Hamilton to try and explain their poor run of form since the winter break.
Steven Gerrard's men have fallen 13 points behind fierce rivals Celtic in the title race after a string of poor performances and were also dumped out of the Scottish Cup by Hearts last weekend.
Tavernier was brutally honest in his programme notes and even admitted that he was at fault for the winning goal at Tynecastle on Saturday.
However, supporters took issue with one particular section of the Englishman's column and made their feelings clear on Twitter.
Tavernier wrote: 'Whenever anybody puts a bit of pressure on us in Scotland or gets in our face it seems to affect us too much.
'At the start of the season teams dropped off us and we were scoring four or five goals, but now they smell blood straight away and put us under pressure.
'We are not good enough domestically to react to that.'
That provoked an angry reaction on social media, with fans accusing their captain of not being fit to wear the armband.
Twitter user @_IbroxLoyal wrote: 'Am still in f****** shock. A Rangers captain, admitting he doesn't have the mentality to play for Rangers domestically. Crazy that it was printed too. 'Get in aboot (sic) us n we'll s*** ourselves'. F****** loser. Get out my club.
'And he drives about Glasgow in a f****** lambo thinking he's the ticket. Am actually f****** ragin (sic)'.
User @JimJimiblu claimed that Tavernier was an 'embarrassment of a captain', while @Blue54rfc said: 'He's no captain, he's proven to be a failure and doesn't deserve to play for Rangers again.'
'Spineless gutless coward man, if he has the armband on come our next match then we are f*****,' wrote @ggh1992 on Wednesday night.
Tavernier's words were also described as 'tragic' by @Lisa10__, while @carlbruce86 said: 'This is from a Rangers captain? How standards have dropped.'
Tavernier, who has scored three goals and made nine assists in 44 appearances this season, may believe the criticism to be over the top given the full context of his programme notes show that he was not making excuses for Rangers' shocking form.
Gerrard had suggested he could quit in the wake of Saturday's defeat by Hearts, but he later backtracked on his comments and confirmed he would remain at Ibrox.
After his side were booed off on Wednesday night, Gerrard said: 'Where do we start? We have just given three points away, it's as simple as that.
'I'm not really sure I've got that many words to describe it.
'The effort was there, the commitment was there but we haven't taken the chances we created in the game. That's been the story of it. Hamilton have gone down the other end and scored and maybe could have scored another one.
'Again, a mistake has cost us. That's where the three points have gone.
'I didn't think I could be more disappointed that I was after Hearts - but here I am, even more disappointed that I was a few days ago.'
Bacon-man
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I like honesty but the team seems on a massive low. What happened in Dubai is something I’d love to know