Giovanni van Bronckhorst thinks that Rangers' hard-fought win in their first league game at the Tony Macaroni Arena will teach them something.
Rangers were behind for most of the game because they gave up an easy goal early on. Five minutes into the game, Joel Nouble beat defender John Souttar, raced onto a long ball, lobbed goalkeeper Jon McLaughlin, who was playing in place of last season's No. 1 Allan McGregor, and scored his first goal for Livingston.
The home team defended well on their artificial surface and looked like they might pull off a surprise win against last year's Europa League finalists, until Rangers scored two goals in three minutes in the second half to turn the game on its head.
Scott Arfield, who came on as a substitute, scored a great header to tie the game. Then, captain James Tavernier scored the winning goal with a 25-yard free kick, which made the huge traveling crowd happy.
"It was a big win," Van Bronckhorst said. It's very important to get three points from a tough away game on a tough surface. We didn't get off to a good start. It's a simple goal that shouldn't have been scored. We didn't pay enough attention. When the long ball came, there was no fight. For the second ball, we need to move faster, but we'll be fine. We will learn from this first game of the season.
"If you look at how we played in the second half, we earned the win. We did much better in the second half. We changed the way things were set up, and then there was one-way traffic for 45 minutes."
David Martindale, the manager of Livingston, said that his team should have gotten at least a point, and he regretted that Arfield, who came off the bench in the second half and tied the game five minutes after coming on, was brought on.
Four times before, the midfielder had scored for Rangers against Livingston. This time, he flicked in a cross from Ryan Kent.
Martindale said, "That boy is not allowed in Livingston!" His runs through the middle are great. He has made a career out of it, but I think he only does it against Livingston now.
"I'll have to try to sign him just so he can sit on the bench or watch from the stands and not play against us. Scotty does what Scotty does, and Tav does what Tav does. That's why Tav is the captain of the Rangers.
Van Bronkhorst was happy with Tavernier's winning free kick, which he skillfully curled past the first-time goalkeeper for Livingston, Shamal George, with 16 minutes left. He said, "We know how good he is because of [set pieces] and shooting from far away. He finally scored a great free kick that gave us three important points."
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