Caixinha minds gap at heart of defence

have scored goals in the last 12 matches, the official ones, and we have won seven, we’ve had two draws and we’ve lost three of those matches.

“We have scored 27 goals and conceded 14, so the difference here and the imbalance here is on the number of goals we concede. That is what we are focused on.

“Yesterday [Tuesday] we came back for training and we started working on the basic principles about defending, the relations between the first and the second defender, and we will start today [Wednesday] including the relation of the third defender, especially how to defend in the wide areas, the association, the relations, the co-operation that we need to have and know how to defend individually as a line and of course also as a block.

“It’s the main difference that is putting us in third position and the difference you see by the numbers you have from Celtic and from Aberdeen.”

After seeing their Eusebio Cup clash with Benfica cancelled this week, Rangers are now focused on the trip to face St Johnstone a week tomorrow.

Danny Wilson and Niko Kranjcar have both returned to training at Auchenhowie and Caixinha will demand improvements across the park to improve the Gers’ defensive unit.

He told RangersTV: “For me defending is not the back four or the back three or the back five or whatever, it’s the whole team.

“That’s what we need to work on more because if you have more clean sheets and you concede less goals you are going to win more matches.

“That’s what we are definitely going to be focusing on in this two weeks and I think we need to keep focused even longer than that in order for us to be a balanced team when we need to defend in all the circumstances.

“We want to keep the same passion by attacking. But on the moments of the game we need to defend we need to defend better, definitely.”