Smith praised the endeavour of St Johnstone after the defeat

Rangers manager Walter Smith admitted his side had been well beaten following the 4-1 loss to St Johnstone.

The Scottish Premier League leaders missed the chance to go 13 points clear of Celtic with a listless performance at McDiarmid Park.

"We had a poor evening, a very disappointing evening given what's at stake for us at the present moment," Smith told BBC Scotland.

"Overall, we can have no complaints, St Johnstone were the better side."

Sasa Papac's goal briefly gave Rangers hope after Saints had roared into an early two-goal lead but the hosts led 3-1 at the break and rounded off victory with Murray Davidson's late strike.

"We have to give credit to St Johnstone," said Smith.

"In the first half especially, they were by far the better side. They were brighter, they were more aggressive than we were.

"In the second half, we adjusted a wee bit better, we had territorial advantage but really no great opportunities, St Johnstone defending very well.

"You would have expected us to have had more attempts on goal than we did.

"There's no consolation to be taken in tonight's game. We've got more about us than we showed tonight.

"I don't think there's any aspect of complacency. What was disappointing was that we didn't match St Johnstone's endeavour in the first half of the game and that's solely our own fault."

It doesn't matter what we've done previously in the season, we have to adjust to what's in front of us Walter Smith

Smith withdrew Kris Boyd and Kevin Thomson at half-time and sent on Kyle Lafferty and Maurice Edu, but the changes did not alter the course of the match as Rangers were increasingly frustrated by a buoyant St Johnstone.

"You could've taken any of the players off at half-time never mind the two," said the Rangers boss.

"The way we had gone about our game in the first half was extremely poor.

"No excuses from our own point of view, it is a performance that wasn't good enough to get anything. Don't take anything away from St Johnstone, I felt in the first half of the game they were excellent in the manner in which they approached the game."

The loss was Rangers' second of the league campaign and the reigning champions still have a game in hand over their Old Firm rivals.

"It doesn't matter what we've done previously in the season," Smith added.

"We have to adjust to what's in front of us and the opening 45 minutes was probably as poor a 45 minutes as we've had all season.

"That was extremely disappointing."

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