Rangers latest attempt to win a FA Cup game saw us travel to Luton for a 3rd round replay following the 2-2 draw at Loftus Road earlier this month.

John Gregory was forced into some changes to the side that lost against Southampton on Saturday. Sampsa Timoska was unable to play as he wasn't registered in time to play in the third round so Mauro Milanese started at left back. Marc Bircham's injury (which will see him miss the rest of the season) gave a start to Stefan Bailey whilst Lee Cook returned in place of Shabazz Baidoo Gregory also made a change up front dropping Ray Jones and giving Marc Nygaard his first start since December.

The opening exchanges of the game were pretty dire to say the least with both sides lacking in confidence and looking in desperate of a boost. It was Rangers who found their feet first and began to get a grip on the game.

Lee Cook was causing problems on the left and combined well with Milanese to send the Italian down the wing, his cross was excellent and found Nygaard unmarked from six yards out but he put his header wide. This set off a pattern for the evening as Rangers dominated the game but just couldn't score.

Jimmy Smith went close with a shot from the edge of the box before Blackstock raced onto the rebound and was denied by the keeper.

Luton offered nothing as an attacking threat and after Nygaard missed another good chance the teams went in 0-0 at half time with John Gregory wondering how on earth his team were not three goals ahead.

The second half carried on the same with Rangers dominating the game, knocking the ball about well but falling apart in front of goal. Blackstock missed a great chance when put through by Cook whilst Nygaard was doing his chances of a regular place no favours by missing another two sitters hitting the side netting with one and the other when pt clean through he put wide.

Damion Stewart was next to go close heading a Cook corner wide before Gregory made a change bringing on Ray Jones for Nygaard.

Cook had the beating of his full back all night long and it was a case of when rather than if Rangers would get the goal to set up a fourth round tie with Blackburn on Monday.

The a mad six minutes turned the game on it's head. Stefan Bailey set it off with a two-footed sliding tackle, which got the ball and also the ankle of Brkovic and as it was two-footed Bailey was in trouble. A brawl between the players was started as players ran quicker than they had all night to get involved and Bailey was shown the red card. It had been a poor tackle by Bailey but hopefully he will learn from this and come back better than ever when his suspension ends.

Rangers were still on top despite being down to ten men but it was Luton who opened the scoring with the only goal of the night. It looked as if it was going to take a miracle for Luton to score and they got one through Zesh Rehmann.

Dean Morgan sliced his shot from the edge of the area and it was heading for a throw in before Rehmann swung a left at it and managed to slice the ball into the bottom corner for quite possibly the own goal of the season. Rehmann looked devastated, it was a freak goal but sadly Rehmann is making a habit of producing clangers during games and this was his worst so far.

Gareth Ainsworth came on for Smith as we pushed forward for a late equaliser but it never came and a game Rangers should have won by five of six clear goals ends with yet another defeat.

It's hard to know where Rangers go from here. Confidence must be at an all time low and the team seem to have forgotten how to score goals and win games. With Cook in the side we are always going to create chances but we badly need someone up front to convert them. Nygaard is getting in the right positions but just seems unable to finish them off this year and with his injury record it's unlikely he'll be able to start every week without getting injured. Bircham's back injury means we now need a central midfield player rather urgently and I'd also like to see us strengthen the right side of midfield.

Gregory has a lot of work to do if the team are going to stay up this season, we are in complete freefall at the moment. We need someone to put their foot on the ball and calm things down in the middle of the park and sadly none of our players seem capable of that at the moment and this defeat means we miss out on a £300,000 pay day in the fourth round and with that goes any chance we had of bringing in some decent players to strengthen the squad.

It looks bleak but if John Gregory can keep hold of Cook and find a goalscorer from somewhere we could still turn this season around and move away from danger.