THE SCORE FLATTERED US LEE MCCULLOCH was thrilled his side ran - TopicsExpress

THE SCORE FLATTERED US LEE MCCULLOCH was thrilled his side ran out 5-1 winners against Arbroath but the skipper believes the result at the final whistle was not an accurate reflection of the 90 minutes. In the first half Paul Sheerin’s men produced a solid, hard working performance and the visitors arguably had the better chances to open the scoring. They then stunned the Ibrox faithful by taking the lead early in the second half with Alan Cook curling a great lob over Cammy Bell and into the net. Rangers, however, responded brilliantly and after Bilel Mohsni had equalised McCulloch netted his second hat-trick in successive games while Andy Little also hit his team’s fourth goal with a well taken left foot strike. Lee, however, believes it was a far tougher match than the scoreline suggests. He said: “I think when you look at Arbroath’s team they have good players and I know their manager personally, I know how hard he works. “They scored their goal at the start of the second half and I think that is maybe what we needed. We then raised the tempo of the game but they are a good team. “I think we got a wee bit of luck with our first goal from big Bilel when the ball broke to him and that was the turning point. "We then went on to score our five goals but to be honest I think the result at the end flattered us a bit.” Ally McCoist included seven of the club’s summer signings in his starting XI this afternoon with Cammy Bell, Mohsni, Stevie Smith, Nicky Law, Arnold Peralta, Nicky Clark and Jon Daly all getting the nod. After a disappointing first half Rangers started to shift through the gears after going behind to Cook’s goal and McCulloch believes his side will only get stronger as the players continue to gel. He added: “I think it’s great to see the new lads play and it adds a bit of freshness. Big Waldo just missed out today because he was away in midweek with Scotland but Stevie Smith came in and did really well. In fact I think they all worked really hard. “It wasn’t easy for them today because some hadn’t played for a while but we did a lot better in the second half and it was just great to get another win and a few goals as well." //Stevie