Steven Gerrard must be worrying he’s starting to sound like a broken record.
Rewind to September 19 and the Rangers boss reacted to a frustrating 1-1 draw at home with Motherwell by imploring his strikers to sharpen up after missing a string of chances.
A month on, it’s a repeat episode for Gerrard and his team after blowing another win on home soil, this time against nearest rivals Hearts.
Gers produced 45 minutes of slick, stylish football, only to pay a heavy toll for netting just once while on top with a second-half slip in standards resulting in a costly equaliser.
From 27 attempts they had just John Lundstram ’s sublime strike to show for it.
A sharp Alfredo Morelos would have had five goals on Saturday but, unfortunately for the Light Blues faithful, on show was the blunt version of the Colombian who turns up at Ibrox every now and again.
A dip in form is still no excuse for the horror sitter he passed up five minutes from time after Kemar Roofe laid it on a plate five yards out. It summed up a toothless display.
Rangers may still have got away with the points had they been facing an ordinary keeper – Craig Gordon is anything but.
The 38-year-old proved as much when Roofe was through on goal, getting just enough on the ball to divert it against a post.
We’ve all seen enough football down the years to know what happens when a team fails to capitalise while on top.
The inevitable did not disappoint the 1000-strong band of Jambos as Craig Halkett snatched a point, which keeps Robbie Neilson’s side within touching distance of the leaders.
Gerrard said: “In football it’s about what happens in both boxes. Craig Gordon has been very busy, he’s made some really good saves.
“But at the same time our finishing has got to be better. We’ve got to be more ruthless and take more chances.
“We’ve created 27 shots at goal. We’ve had a tap-in to score, we’ve had a one-v-one where we could even have gone around the keeper.
"When you talk about the level of player here at Rangers, you expect them to score more than one goal from what we created.
“We’ve got no choice but to improve.
“The performance was really good first half. We were in control, we played with style, we created a lot and got a fantastic goal to put ourselves in a good position.
“But at half-time you’re saying to the lads, ‘We need to keep this level and go take the points away from Hearts’.
“If you don’t do that, you always know they’re going to have one or two moments themselves and they did. And they made us pay at the end for not being ruthless enough.”
The damage done was not enough to knock the champions off the summit.
But Gerrard knows well enough from his first two of three seasons in charge what happens when a drip of leaking points becomes a torrent.
The 41-year-old said: “It’s still very early. Even last year when we had a more consistent start, nothing was won after nine games. We’re not even one third through the fixtures.
“We’ve still got to play two more teams, so it’s still very early and there’s tons and
tons of football to play. We are where we want to be in terms of our position in the league.
“But we know performance wise and consistency-wise we’ve still got levels to go to, which is a positive. But you can’t keep letting points
slip away from you.”
Halkett took the headlines with his 90th-minute equaliser but it would have been summer recruit Lundstram taking the plaudits had Gers clung on.
The former Sheffield United man beat Gordon with a beauty that arced in past the keeper’s left-hand post from 25 yards but also did all the simple things well, setting the tempo in a dominant first-half display.
Gerrard said: “John played like two players. He’s really showing his level now.
“We’ve got a lot of confidence and belief. He’s showing that level of consistency after taking his time to settle in.
“He gets man of the match but that’s not important right now. What’s important is that we’ve let two points get stolen away from us after such a decent performance where we created enough to get the win.”
