Peter Lovenkrands in surprise Rangers takedown of Barry Ferguson management (2025)

Lovenkrands wasn't impressed with how Barry Ferguson handled Rangers' trip to Aberdeen

Peter Lovenkrands hates it when managers base their team selections around future games rather than the one right in front of them.

So he was surprised to see his former Rangers teammate Barry Ferguson fall into that trap against Aberdeen, telling his former skipper 'I wouldn't have done that.'

With Thursday's crucial Europa League quarter-final second leg against Athletic Bilbao in the forefront of his mind, Ferguson rang in the changes for the trip to Pittodrie with the likes of Oscar Cortes, Danilo, Findlay Curtis and Ross McCausland all thrown in for rare starts.

They ended up two goals and a man down at the break after McCausland's sending off fell between Leighton Clarkson and Pape Gueye's strikes – and needed a cabal of subs including late goal hero Ianis Hagi to come off the bench and rescue a point.

But the whole situation doesn't sit well with Lovenkrands who told the Scottish Football Social Club: "I wouldn't have done that. At Rangers you need to win every football game. I remember playing, you don't want to get rested or miss out on games.

"I wanted to play every game. In our great runs in Europe and the Champions League, I didn't get rested against Villarreal and Milan. I played every game.

"You don't want to take it lightly and say 'can I play some of the players we've not played a lot?' And look ahead to the next game.

"I would rather he'd gone the other way around, started with his strongest team, then if you are 3-0 up you can start making changes and resting players up.

"Take one game at a time, win the game first then focus on Europe. So I was very surprised to see that lineup when I saw it.

"There were so many changes, it's not as if it was two or three. As soon as I saw the lineup I knew Aberdeen were going to come pushing. Rangers were going to make mistakes, and they did.

"The red card, Ross McCausland is a player who hasn't played a lot. He's trying to make a point, and he made a mistake. The second yellow card was a no-brainer."

Lovenkrands reckons that, while trying to avoid key men getting injured for Thursday's clash, where Rangers travel to the Basque Country looking to build on a 0-0 draw in Glasgow, he inadvertently created a 'nightmare' situation for himself.

"The squad is not good enough to handle this situation and go to Pittodrie and get a result (with rotation)," he said.

"I just find it quite difficult. As a footballer, as a coach, you have to take it one game at a time. I hate looking ahead to the next one too early.

"Maybe you put players in who haven't played many minutes. They get injuries and get substituted early because they haven't played. Then you call on your captain to come on, with no warmup, and basically risk him getting injured for Thursday – all because you're taking chances on players who've not played minutes or got that in their legs.

"I just thought the whole scenario turned out to be a bit of a nightmare."