Michael Beale responds to Harry Souttar Rangers transfer link as he lets 'wasteful' strikers off for now

Miffed Michael Beale last night admitted he’s praying "wasteful" Rangers' failure to kill off Servette doesn’t come back to bite them in Geneva.

The Ibrox gaffer’s new look squad looked like they were cruising towards the Champions League play-offs after watching his side strike twice inside 15 minutes. But Gers failed to build on those early strikes from skipper James Tavernier and Cyriel Dessers and were pegged back just before half-time when Dessers undid the good work of his first goal for the club by gifting the Swiss side a penalty.

While Chris Bedia tucked home the spot-kick, Beale’s side still should have given themselves a bigger advantage going into next Tuesday’s second leg. Sam Lammers was guilty of a horrible first-half miss before the Dutchman and Dessers both saw Servette’s second-choice keeper Joel Mall pull off t stunning saves to leave the tie hanging in the balance.

But Beale said: “I’ll give our forwards [a break] at the moment because they’re new coming into the club and it’s early in the season. But if we keep creating chances like that then we have to take them if we’re to put teams away. We started really really well and I thought the energy from the team was really good in and out of possession. The desire shown by Nico Raskin and Todd Cantwell before the first goal to go chase a couple of lost causes down was fantastic.

“I felt Borna Barisic had a good night and put some great crosses in. Playing with the two No.9s gives you that opportunity that we got when Danilo went across the first post and Cyriel scores. At that moment we were in a great place. But after that I thought we were wasteful. Then comes the VAR decision for the penalty. I thought it was harsh but that’s the ruling.

“The