McLeish ready to face criticism

Rangers 0-2 Auxerre

Rangers manager Alex McLeish accepts he is going to be criticised after their disastrous Uefa Cup exit at the hands of Auxerre at Ibrox on Wednesday.

McLeish told BBC Radio Five Live: "We were in pole position to get through to the next stage but we blew it, we absolutely blew it.

"There's no use burying your head in the sand, we know we are going to get a lot of criticism.

"We have to take it as we have done in the past and we must now bounce back."

McLeish admitted his team's defending was amateurish after watching them lose 2-0 to Guy Roux's French side.

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"I'm very disappointed because we didn't give ourselves a chance, losing the first goal from our own corner. It was amateur," he added.

"The early goal in the second half gave us a mountain to climb and we never created the same kind of chances as we did in the first half.

"It's difficult to take positives from the game. We've let the fans down."

But McLeish defended the tactical changes that could not prevent Rangers finishing fourth in Group F.

Zura Khizanishvili was moved from right-back to man-mark Bonaventure Kalou, but the Ivory Coast marksman scored the two goals that won the game.

"We discussed it at length over a couple of days and I knew that Zura had done man-marking jobs for the Georgian national team against people like Hakan Sukur and Nihat of Turkey and did it extremely well," he said.