Cyriel Dessers meets Rangers question about Clement head on and bares all on who is really being let down

Striker admits the sight of punters flocking out of Ibrox long before the final whistle of Saturday's defeat to St Mirren hurt.

Cyriel Dessers admits Rangers players are letting the club and the fans down as he demanded an end to the apologies.

Saturday’s woeful defeat to St Mirren saw brassed-off punters flock out of Ibrox long before the final whistle. Those who stayed behind turned their ire on the players and under fire boss Philippe Clement at full-time of a second successive home defeat that followed the humiliating Scottish Cup exit to Queen’s Park.

Dessers was one of a group of players who stayed back to acknowledge the supporters at full-time while the manager and others disappeared down the tunnel. Rangers have now shipped 25 points from 27 league games and this latest defeat crushed the wave of positivity off the park that followed news of the US interest in buying the club.

Dessers admits the sight of fans leaving the ground early brought home the scale of the problems at Ibrox. And he says it’s down to the players to walk tall and begin delivering on the park to end to the apologies that are becoming all too regular for a beleaguered support.

Asked if the players are letting the manager down he said: “I don’t think so. Nobody has this in our mind. We are letting ourselves down, we are letting the club down, we are letting the fans down. As we have said a few times in the last months, we need big performances, we need to straighten our back so we don’t have to apologise to the fans any more for these performances.

“Seeing fans leave early hurts. But I can understand it. The last home game was a very tough one, we bounced back against Hearts and wanted to bounce back again against St Mirren. To give the fans something. Clearly we didn’t so there’s an understanding for that situation. It’s time for us to stick together and hopefully we don’t need to make these apologies any more in the near future.”

Clement admitted Saturday was the worst performance of a wretched season. The embattled Belgian accepts his future is in the hands of the Rangers board. The Ibrox faithful have given up on the manager but CEO Patrick Stewart has twice given the manager a vote of confidence despite the domestic season being over by February.

Rangers are 13 points off the top and missed an opportunity to cut that gap after Celtic lost at Hibs earlier on Saturday. A Europa League last 16 clash with Jose Mourninho’s Fenerbahce offers a last chance of any glory this season.

But Dessers insists Rangers’ woes aren’t solely down to the manager. He said: “For me it’s very difficult to speak about that topic. The manager prepared the game the whole week. We trained on certain things during the week and if I looked at it we didn’t execute these things enough.

“So I try to look at what I can control and try to look at the team and the players and Saturday was below our standards.”