91Èȱ¬

Rangers boss Ally McCoist was "shocked" after watching his side surrender a lead to lose the first leg of their Europa League tie with Maribor.

Juanma Ortiz's tap-in put the Ibrox side in command, but second-half goals from Agim Ibraimi and Etien Velikonja gave the Slovenians the advantage.

"We created our own downfall," said McCoist. "We weren't protecting Allan McGregor or our defence nearly enough.

"It's a poor, poor result for us, but I still believe we'll go through."

The away goal gives Rangers hope for next Thursday's return leg at Ibrox, but Maribor will fancy their chances of scoring in Glasgow after enjoying several periods of pressure at the Ljudski vrt stadium.

"We weren't good enough in the middle of the park," McCoist told 91Èȱ¬ Radio Scotland.

"The number of times that their midfield were having free shots at goal was there for everybody to see.

"We stood off them, we let them play, we let them come back into it in the second half and we effectively got what we deserved.

"It's crazy. I would've been disappointed with 1-1. I'm actually a little bit shocked. I couldn't see us losing that game at all.

"We have to learn from the result, learn from the defeat and come back and win the second leg and I believe we will do that.

"I honestly believe we've got the firepower and we certainly created enough chances to score goals and I think we'll do that at Ibrox."

McCoist replaced the booked Steven Naismith at the break with fit-again Kyle Lafferty and admitted the change disrupted Rangers' rhythm.

"We just felt that he had been doing very well towards the end of last season playing in that area just off Nikica, so we thought we'd do that and just match up in the middle of the park and go straight four against them and give our boys something to do," he added.

"But, to be quite frank, it didn't work."