Murty: Rangers must strive to be outstanding

RANGERS manager Graeme Murty is determined to drive up standards so that “outstanding is the norm”.

Murty (below) watched with satisfaction as his side racked up five goals in 22 minutes against Ayr on Sunday to secure a place in the William Hill Scottish Cup quarter-finals. But the Ibrox boss is more excited by their potential for improvement.

Speaking ahead of tomorrow’s trip to Hamilton, Murty said: “The thrilling part of it isn’t that we win games or that we scored goals or had flashes of good stuff, the thrilling part for me is that we can get better.

“We can get cleaner, we can get sharper, we can have a better understanding, we can be more ruthless, we can be more clinical. And I’m saying that as a manager who is quite pleased with the steps that we’ve made.

“But I’m hungry for us to get better and elevate our level on a daily basis, so that our norms are outstanding. And I believe we have the players in the squad who are capable of doing that.”

Rangers sit third in the Ladbrokes Premiership and will need to improve on their previous performance against Martin Canning’s Hamilton, when they suffered a 2-0 defeat after missing a string of chances.

“We know what Martin will set his team up to do, we know they have a threat,” Murty said.

“They came to Ibrox and turned us over 2-0. From us dominating the game, they created clear chances to score against us. So it’s up to us to make sure we deny them those opportunities because if we don’t we will be punished.”