Danny Rolle secured his first league win as Rangers manager with a 3-1 victory over Kilmarnock at Ibrox.
It was Rangers’ first home Premiership win of the season, a 3-0 Europa League defeat to Brann in midweek, and Rolle has made a dream start to life in Scotland.
But the German got the perfect reaction from his new team as Derek Cornelius headed home the opener from a James Tavernier free-kick in the 15th minute.
Derek Cornelius scores the first goal for Rangers.
The Ibrox crowd then chanted Rolle’s name, but the positive mood was dashed when George Stanger fired into an empty net after Rangers goalkeeper Jack Butland made a mistake in a corner and the Englishman’s punch missed completely.
Butland’s opposite number Eddie Beech then almost made an even bigger mistake, but his dropkick hit Cornelius, looped back across the defence, and was headed into the empty net by Bojan Miowski, whose effort was ruled offside by VAR.
Danilo headed low from Jayden Meghoma’s excellent cross, but the hosts managed to regain the lead just six minutes after half-time.
Just six minutes later, Butland atoned for his first-half mistake by stopping Bruce Anderson’s header in the bottom corner with a superb one-handed save.
Substitute Youssef Cermiti then scored his first goal for Rangers since joining the club in a £10m deal from Everton, with a 72nd-minute effort that Beach should have saved.
Youssef Cermiti scores his first goal for the club
Rangers conceded a fourth goal late on when Nicholas Raskin’s goal was disallowed for offside.
The win in Rolle’s first home game saw Rangers move into fifth place, 13 points behind leaders Hearts, while Kilmarnock dropped to eighth.
Mr. Rohr: Winning ‘small steps’ towards recovery
Mr Roll believes the victory is just a “small step” in the Ibrox club’s rebuilding.
The 36-year-old was appointed as Russell Martin’s replacement last Monday and after his first win against Kilmarnock, he now looks ahead to a midweek trip to Hibernian following next Sunday’s Scottish League Cup semi-final against Celtic at Hampden Park.
“I have to say we really enjoyed our performance,” said the former Sheffield Wednesday manager. “Everything wasn’t perfect, but it was a good step forward.
Danny Rohr celebrates first win as Rangers manager
“(A) first win is always important for a group to generate confidence. We could have seen better. Thursday was very disappointing, not only tactically, but also in terms of how we played with intensity.”
“Today was much better. This is a small step in our journey. We know where we want to go. It helps the group’s confidence and for me it was important to see a team that is ready and working hard.”
“Personally, we’ve made good progress. Overall, I’m happy. We know we still have to improve a lot, but we can’t get more than three points. If we want to do more, we have to win this game. We’ve achieved that and we’ll move on from here.”
“We’ll watch the game again on Monday to show what went well and what we need to improve on, and then come back on Wednesday to look at the next steps.”
Kettlewell helps goaltender Beach recover from mistake
Kilmarnock manager Stuart Kettlewell backed inexperienced reserve goalkeeper Beech to bounce back from a tough afternoon.
Kettlewell revealed that there was genuine anger in the dressing room afterwards over all three goals conceded, adding: “I’m not going to lock myself in a room and feel sorry for myself.
“He’s a confident boy with great character. He’s made some mistakes, one of which he’s been punished for.
“He has to bounce back and he will. But he has to understand that at this level if you make a mistake you are going to get hurt.”
