Sunday 20 November 2016 18:30, UK
Harry Forrester says Rangers players can understand and deal with criticism from the stands at Ibrox after his late header sealed a win over Dundee.
The 25-year-old glanced fellow substitute Joe Dodoo's cross into the net in injury time to earn Rangers a 1-0 victory in a game which the hosts started and finished well but also saw them endure frustrating periods.
Gers fans made their feelings known, notably when Mark Warburton took off Josh Windass, later stressing he needed to ease the midfielder up to a 90-minute contribution following injuries, but Forrester's header keeps his side one point behind second-placed Aberdeen in the Premiership.
"The crowd help us so much," Forrester said. "Sometimes they expect us to do better than we are doing obviously, and we sense that.
"But as professionals we have got to deal with that. We know what it's like, that at Rangers we are expected to win, we expect to win. And if we are not doing the job that we need to be doing, we know we are going to be told."
Forrester, who scored his third goal in as many games against Dundee, has only started five league matches this season but he refuses to get frustrated.
"Everyone wants to play as many minutes as possible," he said. "At the moment it's from the bench, as a squad player you know you have got to do that.
"There are 23 of us at the moment and the manager picks his 11 to go out there. Whether it's from the bench or from the start, I will do the job that's called upon."
The late goal sent Dundee back to the foot of the table after consecutive wins over Hamilton and Motherwell had lifted them off but manager Paul Hartley is not overly concerned.
"We're not too worried about that if we keep performing like that. We have shown over the last month that we're a different team now," he said. "We've got some good games coming up that we can get some points from, but we have got to keep working like that and work even harder."
Defender Darren O'Dea also feels Dundee are on the right track.
"As a team we're a different animal than we were a few weeks ago," he said. "We look so solid, we don't look like we are going to concede, and we had our chances.
"When we were on a bad run, the problem wasn't losing to Celtic and Hearts, it was not beating the teams around us. We have Inverness next week who are doing well at the minute, but they are the games we are expected to win."
