Danny Röhl won his first league game in charge of Rangers with a 3-1 victory over Kilmarnock at Ibrox.
Rangers’ first home Premiership win of the season gave Röhl the dream start to life in Scotland after he suffered a 3-0 Europa League defeat at Brann in his first match in charge in midweek.
But the German got the perfect response from his new side as Derek Cornelius headed in a 15th-minute opener from James Tavernier’s free-kick.
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Derek Cornelius opened the scoring for Rangers
The Ibrox crowd then sang Röhl’s name, but the positive mood was punctured when Rangers goalkeeper Jack Butland made an error at a corner to allow George Stanger to finish into an empty net after the Englishman had completely missed his punch.
Butland’s opposite number, Eddie Beach, then nearly made an even bigger error as his drop-kick hit Cornelius and looped back over the entire defence for Bojan Miovski to head into an empty net, but the strike was ruled offside by VAR.
The home side did manage to restore their lead just six minutes after half-time as Danilo’s downward header from a fine Jayden Meghoma cross crashed in off the post.
Just six minutes later, Butland atoned for his first-half error with a superb one-handed save to stop Bruce Anderson’s bottom-corner header.
Substitute Youssef Chermiti then scored his first Rangers goal since joining the club in a £10m deal from Everton with a 72nd-minute strike that Beach should have kept out.
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Youssef Chermiti scored his first goal for the club
Rangers were denied a fourth late on as Nicolas Raskin’s goal was disallowed for offside.
Victory in Röhl’s first home game in charge moves Rangers up to fifth, 13 points behind leaders Hearts, while Kilmarnock drop to eighth.
Röhl: Win a ‘small step’ in recovery
Röhl believes the win is no more than a “small step” in the rehabilitation of the Ibrox club.
The 36-year-old was installed as Russell Martin’s successor last Monday and after a first win over Kilmarnock, is looking ahead to a trip to Hibernian in midweek followed by their Scottish League Cup semi-final against Celtic at Hampden Park next Sunday.
“I must say I really enjoyed our performance,” said the ex-Sheffield Wednesday boss. “Everything was not perfect, but it was a good step forward.
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Danny Röhl celebrates his first win in charge of Rangers
“(A) first win is always important for the group to create the confidence. I saw much more good things. Thursday was a big disappointment, not just the tactical part but how we played with intensity.
“Today it was much better. It is a small step in our journey, we know where we want to go.It helps to lift the confidence of the group and for me, it was important to see a team on the pitch who was working hard, ready to go.
“I saw some good individual steps forward. All in all, I’m happy. I know we still have to improve a lot of things, it’s not more than three points. You have to win this game if you want to do more: we did and now we go forward.
“On Monday, we’ll watch the game back, we’ll show them what was good and what we have to improve and then I want to see again the next step on Wednesday.”
Kettlewell backs goalkeeper Beach to bounce back from errors
Kilmarnock boss Stuart Kettlewell backed inexperienced back-up goalkeeper Beach to bounce back from a tough afternoon.
Kettlewell, who revealed there was genuine anger in the dressing room afterwards about all three goals conceded, said: “You’re not going to lock yourself up in a room and feel sorry for yourself.
“He’s a big personality, a confident lad. He’s made a couple of errors and one he’s punished for.
“He has to pick himself back up and he will. But you have to understand that if you make errors, you’re going to be hurt at this level.”