Former Rangers defender Jefte claims the club made an error in not giving Philippe Clement more chances.
The Belgian spent over a year as manager at Ibrox, winning one major honour.
Clement signed left-back Jefte during his only summer transfer window in charge.
"I have enormous affection for Philippe. He was interested in my football in Cyprus and brought me to Rangers," Jefte told Record Sport.
"He gave me the opportunity to compete in one of the most important leagues in the world. I think Rangers erred in not giving him more chances, especially since he’d won titles in years before [in Belgium].
"He deserved to stay. Barry [Ferguson] is another coach I really admire. He has a great history at the club and we had some great moments together."
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Jefte made 56 Rangers appearances before departing the club permanently for Palmeiras last summer.
"I really wanted to win a title with Rangers," he admitted. "We deserved a lot with the squad we had, but weren’t successful.
"We didn’t win a title but we did grow as players and learned a lot from our mistakes. Look, nobody wanted to win a title more than we did.
"But you also have to consider we were playing against strong teams like Celtic, our rivals. Other clubs like Hibernian, among others, also had good players.
"Just as we wanted to win, they also had the same objective. But in that season when we didn’t win a title, it was more mental.
"We always had high-level players with excellent capabilities. But I believe the mental aspect did hinder us from achieving the title."
