Pedrolaysdown his priorities for improvement...
PEDRO CAIXINHA has demanded further improvement from his Rangers squad as he prepares for his second outing as Light Blues boss.
The Portuguese got his Ibrox reign off to a perfect start against Hamilton before the international break as the Gers ran out comfortable 4-0 winners.
He has now had another fortnight to work with his players at Auchenhowie as attentions have turned to the visit of Motherwell this weekend.
Rangers head into the Steelmen clash third in the Premiership standings but still with a chance of overhauling Aberdeen to finish best of the rest this term. And
boss Caixinha is keen to see the Gers take another step in the right direction after putting in the hours on the training pitch in recent days.
He said: “It is important to establish the priorities. When you establish them though, we cannot establish everything that my philosophy is going to demand from the team in terms of their performance.
“So we need to establish some points which are the basis – for example from the Hamilton game, in our opinion we were very good when we had the ball, trying to attack the opponent’s goal etc, and when we didn’t have the ball we tried to attack the ball – that’s the basis we want to build the team around.
“So this needs to be the basis for the Motherwell game, but with some upgrades regarding to more principles in these two moments, and some more upgrades with regards to other areas of our game.
“We have also been working on our set pieces, and we see Scottish football has many different types of set pieces from the opponents we are facing – both attacking and defending – so we are trying to be focused on that.
“Also, analysing the opponents is part of our job, but mainly preparing our team with regards to our behaviours.”
Caixinha was able to put most of his squad through their paces at Auchenhowie as he continues to settle into life in Glasgow.
Captain Lee Wallace picked up a knock during his stint with Scotland, while fellow full-back Lee Hodson was an unused substitute for Northern Ireland during their 2-0 World Cup qualifier victory over Norway.
The Light Blues played a bounce game with members of their first team and Under-20 squads to round off the first week of the international break.
And Caixinha is pleased with the progress his side have been making as the countdown continues to his second Ibrox appearance on Saturday.
“It is important to have time, to have patience and to know how to assess the right points for the players in order to start making key priorities for the players,” Caixinha told RangersTV.
“That is what we have been working on. We only had two players away on international duty – Lee came back with a small injury from the Scottish national team, and Lee Hodson went with Northern Ireland but didn’t play and came straight back in and did the first session with us this week.
“It was very good as it gave us more time to work with the players, and also, we had a game at the end of last week in order for us to know all of the players, to give minutes to all the players and to finish a full week of training under our methods.
“It was really, really good. The players are doing fantastically well and already, we have been preparing the game since Monday as we all think of the games in the same way, and that is to win.
“And I want the players to realise that and put in their minds that we are not going to win a game on the Saturday, the Sunday or the Wednesday, but we have to start working at the start of the week with that mentality.”