Four weeks and 10 games will go some way to defining Steven Gerrard’s first season at Rangers

expected and realistically all that could be asked.

Few would have imagined that they would qualify for the next round and while there will be a sense of disappointment if they were to miss out, it would be nothing compared to the feelings of despair if their Premiership challenge unravelled in the coming weeks.

So the trip to Tynecastle just days after the visit of Villarreal is more important than the game with the La Liga giants. And hosting Hamilton could prove more crucial than heading to Vienna on Matchday Six.

Rangers will also face Dundee and Aberdeen before that final European outing, while they head to St Johnstone in between two meetings with Hibernian

following that

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Accies clash. The final game of the sequence is the most eagerly anticipated and it is on derby day that the pressure will really be on Gerrard and his players to deliver.

Rangers’ form in the Premiership has been stop start for most of the first half of the campaign and there would be no time like the present for them to put together a consistent run of performances and results.

If they could go into the Old Firm clash at the end of the month within touching distance of Brendan Rodgers’ side, it would be a huge boost to their belief and undoubtedly raise confidence levels.

And, for perhaps the first time during Rodgers’ Parkhead reign, it could make Celtic glance over their shoulders and consider Rangers as a genuine top flight title contender.

That ability to rack up the wins, to emerge victorious when it really matters, has been one of the hallmarks of Rodgers’ side over the last two seasons as they have eased to Treble successes.

When the chips are down, few in green and white will doubt their ability to do so again and they will back themselves to put together the kind of run that league triumphs are built on.

That is the challenge now for Rangers.

If they have serious aspirations about taking the title race into the final weeks, they can’t afford a series of slip-ups during a sequence of hugely significant matches.

It is a month that will tell the Ibrox crowd plenty about Gerrard’s progress as a manager and where the 38-year-old will learn a great deal about his players and just where his side are at present.

If there is festive cheer at Ibrox, supporters will dare to dream that they may have something to celebrate when the medals are actually handed out.