Rangers news: Steven Gerrard delivers brutal warning to his players (Image: GETTY)
Rangers were beaten 1-0 at Hampden despite dominating much of the match due to Lewis Ferguson’s late winner.
Gerrard’s side were poor in front of goal in the absence of both Alfredo Morelos and Kyle Lafferty, suspended and cup-tied, and with Umar Sadiq making his first start.
And Gerrard revealed he will be looking to replace anyone who can’t make the grade at Ibrox.
“This one will hurt for a while. Semi-finals are the stage where you want to get over the line and reach a final.
“It’s Aberdeen’s day, we wish them well.
“They deserve to go through because they created that bit of magic in the business end of the box and punished us.
“We didn’t deserve to score. I pick the players, I sign the players, I pick the game plan so I’ll take responsibility for this.
Rangers news: Steven Gerrard's side were beaten by Aberdeen at Hampden (Image: GETTY)
“But what I’ll assure everyone is 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 that we’ve got now don’t improve and start showing the quality we need in the final third, my job is to go and find the players who will. Otherwise, we are never going to win anything.
“The players need to bottle this. Instead of going into a dressing room and being quiet with your head in your hands, self-reflect, take responsibility for your part in it and let’s move forward together.”
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But Gerrard refused to blame Sadiq despite passing up the chance to close in on goal by diving late on.
Sadiq was booked after Joe Lewis rushed out of a goal after the striker initiated contact and went over.
Asked if Sadiq could have carried on and scored, Gerrard said: “100 per cent. To be fair to Umar, in the last two or three weeks he had shown signs of improvement. Whether it’s enough, we’ll have to judge that moving forward.
“His performance up until the final bit today was OK. We can’t point fingers and blame Umar.
“What I would say to him is if you go around the keeper, stand up and put the ball in the net. Don’t dive or you are going to get a yellow card.”