Gerrard can’t blame Motherwell for pitch condition
Rangers settled on a 1-1 draw at Fir Park on Sunday as Well’s pitch was far from at its best. However, Gers’ boss insisted the slippery surface had nothing to do with his team’s labored first-half display.
Cedric
Itten’s 72
nd
-minute goal rescued
Rangers
from their first defeat of the season as
Devante
Cole
had given the Steelmen the lead in a game that Gers couldn’t perform as usual due to a slippery pitch.
Gerrard
said:
“We had an email off Motherwell to be fair a few days ago talking about the standard of the pitch but we knew that at this stage of the season you’re not going to get perfect pitches.
“Ibrox isn’t perfect at the moment, so it is what it is.
“We have to be ready for these type of environments and these pitches and we have to get on with it and do what we can.
“I don’t think the pitch was to blame for our first 45 minutes because you can’t blame a pitch for being passive and having no quality.
“In an ideal world we want to play on a perfect pitch but at this stage it’s not going to be the case. There’s no fingers pointed at Motherwell because given the weather and the conditions and the country we play in, it is what it is.
“(The email) was just to give us an early indication about the pitch and that if the weather turned we could have an issue, and also to say Motherwell had had to use it for training and it was not in the usual condition.
“It’s normally a fantastic pitch here. It was a heads-up that if we had a period of weather that was bad the game could be 50-50.
“Thankfully the game went ahead. We appreciated the heads-up but it’s nothing for Motherwell to be ashamed of because you see all the pitches are like this. You saw Hibs’ pitch on Sportscene, Celtic Park, Ibrox, I think a lot of people are having issues with pitches because of the weather we’ve had and this stage of the season.”
On the other side,
Motherwell
bagged a crucial point against the league leaders after they climbed off the bottom of the table on goal difference, and their boss,
Graham Alexander
, insists all of his players deserve the praise after holding the leaders.
The former Scotland defender said:
“As an ex-full-back I used to hate it when the centre-halves got all the credit, I worked just as hard as they did!
“When those balls came in they were awesome, but the whole team defended well from the front.
“We had to take the two wide lads (Tony Watt and Sherwin Seedorf) off because of tiredness. They had to press and be disciplined in their shape. It wasn’t any tactical thing, we didn’t want to change it. It was just the work they’d put in.
“To play and defend like that you have to have everyone and we had everyone today. Those centre-half boys will recognise that as well.”
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