Gio van Bronckhorst's early Rangers mantra takes Champions League twist as 'keep the zero' takes on new meaning

Keep the zero. That was Gio van Bronckhorst ’s mantra in the early months of his reign. On Wednesday night his team almost kept the zero. The trouble is there was also almost a one in front of it.

Liverpool had 22 shots at Allan McGregor ’s goal, hit the target with nine of them and the back of the net with seven of them. If the game had lasted another five minutes, they might just have got to 10. After all, it took Mo Salah just a little longer than that to score three. Yes, Rangers were up against a team sprinkled with world class performers. There was not a single player in blue shirt who would get near Liverpool’s first team. That’s fine and that’s acceptable.

What should never be acceptable is the manner in which Rangers stopped playing from the minute Darwin Nunez stuck the third goal past McGregor with 25 minutes left. Stopped tracking back, stopped tackling, stopped closing down. This was a team containing seven of the players who beat RB Leipzig, now a quality Champions League team as Celtic can attest, only five months ago in the semi final of the Europa League.

So what has happened to the collective ability and mentality of a group of players who proved last season they could handle the heat of the big occasion? They can’t any longer. And if it goes on any longer, they’ll be looking for a manager because the current one isn’t cutting it.

Not that van Bronckhorst is culpable in isolation. Any time anything positive happens at Ibrox, sporting director Ross Wilson positions himself front and centre.

So where is he when it goes pear-shaped and questions are being asked about why Alfredo Morelos and Ryan Kent are freewheeling to the end of contracts that should have been extended long ago or both of them