Steven Gerrard accepted the blame for Rangers' semi-final loss to Aberdeen, before warning his players to improve or risk being replaced.

The Light Blues toiled to break down a resolute Dons defence at Hampden and were made to pay when Lewis Ferguson headed home the winner ten minutes from time.

Gerrard said his team got what they deserved after failing to find the net for the second match in a row.

The Ibrox boss insisted he'll have no qualms about dipping into the transfer market to find new players should the current crop not find a cutting edge.

He said: "Very tough, this one will hurt for a good while.

"It's Aberdeen's day, we wish them well.

"They deserve to go through because they created that bit of magic at the business end.

"They punished us from a set-piece so we got what we deserved.

"The performance was fine, it was quite good up until a certain point but there was a serious lack of quality in the final bit of our play today.

"We didn't deserve to score, I signed the players, I picked the game plan so I'll take responsibility for this.

"But I'll assure everyone, that won't be our last semi-final.

"If it means I have to go and buy better quality players for when we get to this stage, that's what will happen.

"If the players we have right now don't improve and start producing that bit of quality in the final third, my job is to find players that will do it.

"Otherwise, we're never going to win anything."

Gerrard felt his side "sorely missed" strikers Kyle Lafferty and Alfredo Morelos, although he refused to point the finger at deputising forward Umar Sadiq for Rangers' toils in front of goal.

He continued: "We're Rangers, we're a big club, we should play with a centre-forward in my opinion.

"To be fair to Umar, in the last two or three weeks he had shown signs of improvement.

"Whether that's enough, we'll have to judge that moving forward.

"His performance up until the final bit was okay, we can't point fingers at Umar.

"The only thing I'd say to Umar is when you go round the keeper, stand up and put it in the net.

"Don't dive, you'll get a yellow card."