17 words from Barry Ferguson show how Rangers boss REALLY feels as tune change says it all about first week in job

It hasn’t taken long for Barry Ferguson to change his tune.

After Wednesday’s stirring comeback win at Kilmarnock, the interim Rangers boss strode into the Rugby Park press room before issuing a verbal pat on the back. “My players”, “my team” was how he proudly referred to the men who’d just stormed back to win after an admittedly shambolic opening half hour.

The caretaker gaffer was at it again on Friday as he sat down to preview Saturday’s Ibrox showdown with Motherwell. “My focus is on my team and how my players approach the game,” he said. But by the time the former skipper was facing reporters in the aftermath of Saturday’s defeat to Michael Wimmer’s fabulous Fir Park side, well it wasn’t so much me and my as “they” and “them”.

In fact, he used those two words 17 times while speaking about the squad who’d just lost at home for the third time on the spin - a run of woe the Ibrox faithful haven’t endured since March 2012 as Craig Whyte was tipping the Light Blues into administration. Ferguson did take ownership of the group at one point, right enough, but only when making a desperate attempt to get through to a group who seem incapable of grasping the standards required at Ibrox.

“Listen, I’ve told my players, ‘This has got to hurt you - it’s going to hurt me,” he said, almost imploring them to show some character. But it’s little wonder Ferguson - a man who won 15 major honours back in the days when it was screw-in studs and not brown brogues he was wearing on his feet - is now looking to put some distance between himself and the failing group he inherited from Philippe Clement.

And right now, the big concern for the Ibrox support will be this: what self-respecting coach would want anything to do with this rag-tag