{"id":952603,"date":"2026-05-11T12:37:30","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T12:37:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/952603\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T12:37:30","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T12:37:30","slug":"manny-fernandez-in-brutally-honest-rangers-admission-as-straight-shooting-star-comes-clean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/952603\/","title":{"rendered":"Manny Fernandez in brutally honest Rangers admission as straight-shooting star comes clean"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Ibrox centre-back refused to make excuses for the post-split failure that ended their hopes of becoming champions.<\/p>\n

12:00, 11 May 2026Updated 12:14, 11 May 2026<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Emmanuel Fernandez of Rangers looks dejected<\/p>\n

Straight-shooting Emmanuel Fernandez<\/a> admits Rangers lacked the fight for a Premiership title scrap.<\/p>\n

The Ibrox centre-back refused to make excuses for the post-split failure that ended their hopes of becoming champions.<\/p>\n

Danny Rohl\u2019s<\/a> side will finish third in the league after losing the Old Firm derby 3-1 to Celtic<\/a> on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Rangers<\/a> led through Mikey Moore\u2019s early opener but were pegged back by Yang\u2019s equaliser – then condemned to a damaging defeat by Daizen Maeda\u2019s deadly double.<\/p>\n

It was their third straight loss at a critical point in the campaign, leaving fans livid at their Premiership collapse.<\/p>\n

Honest Fernandez says they just didn\u2019t battle hard enough when it mattered most.<\/p>\n

And he\u2019s told supporters they MUST be better on that front next term.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

(Image: SNS Group)<\/p>\n

When quizzed on why they\u2019ve failed to deliver in the league split, the Gers defender said: \u201cI couldn\u2019t pinpoint an issue. But I just feel like maybe we needed to have a bit more fight.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t say we have been unlucky.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can take stick for it because there are certain moments I probably should have defended better.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is nothing I can say about my team mates – I will probably just look at myself, if anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

When it was put to Fernandez that fans might find a lack of fight difficult to comprehend in the midst of a title race, he said: \u201c<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, 100 percent I totally understand that. We knew it was going to be a fight.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were moments in games where we had to fight.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut in football there are going to be moments where you struggle and go under in the 90 minutes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel that, as a young team if we are going to grow, you are going to struggle but you stick together and defend together.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen, when you come out of it, you have opportunities to score. That is something we have to improve on.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Rangers’ Tochi Chukwuani (centre) speaks with team-Nasser Djiga (left) and Emmanuel Fernandez<\/p>\n

Fernandez accepts that Rangers haven\u2019t been good enough in defeats to Motherwell, Hearts and Celtic at the business end of the season.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s apologised to supporters and believes Rohl\u2019s side will be better for the experience when they return in August for another crack at the title.<\/p>\n

Ahead of their two remaining games against Hibs and Falkirk, Fernandez said: \u201cLook, we\u2019re disappointed. We know that we should have done better in the last three games.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe feel sorry for the fans. But now we have to pick ourselves up. There are two games to go and we have to win these two games for the fans.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen next season comes we\u2019ll have a good side.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst and foremost I apologise to the fans.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I feel like there are still a lot of strong players here, young players, who are going to be in their second season.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey can show they are really worth it and are going to fight.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Ibrox centre-back refused to make excuses for the post-split failure that ended their hopes of becoming champions.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":952604,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4100],"tags":[2628,10110,76431,192586,94,75669,1946,1638,79,16,15],"class_list":["post-952603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-celtic-fc","tag-daizen-maeda","tag-danny-rohl","tag-emmanuel-fernandez","tag-football","tag-mikey-moore","tag-rangers-fc","tag-scottish-premiership","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116555983633050569","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/952603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=952603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/952603\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/952604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=952603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=952603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=952603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}