Gerrard confident of progress and wants his captain for the long haul

Gerrard added: That’s why I gave him the armband.

“James knows what I think of him. It was a big decision to make him captain of this club. I speak to him every day. It’s up to James whether he tells you what has been said between us over the past few days but he has my full support. I want James Tavernier here as long as I’m here.”

Gers were without Josh Windass and Declan John for their showdown with the Slovenians after they were allowed to join Wigan and Swansea respectively — but Alfredo Morelos, was back following his Pittodrie red card.

Although Maribor held Rangers to 1-1 at half-time, Gerrard believes his side will be hard to topple if they can repeat their second-half display, sealed by Lassana Coulibaly’s late header.

He said: “It’s always nice to get a bigger advantage in Europe. It’s an important goal for us but we certainly won’t be getting carried away by the scoreline.

“I thought the players were terrific tonight, especially second half. I thought we looked like a proper team in the second half.

“We started the game pretty well and deserved to go in front. But then something didn’t feel right from about 15-20 minutes until half-time. People were jumping out of slots to go press on their own and it didn’t look right for 20 minutes.

“But we corrected it at halftime and we were sensational from then on and thoroughly deserved to come away with a 3-1 lead rather than 2-1.

“The second 45 is the best we’ve seen from Rangers so far. It’s very close to how we want it to look.”