Gerrard rejects loan moves for out-of-favour winger

Alfredo in front of you guys.

“Then you can ask him the question whether he wants to be part of this going forward. I can only say I want him to be part of it. The decision lands with Alfredo.

“I’m sure now that he has been in this country two or three years, he knows ‘Yes’ and ‘No’.

“So can we have Alfredo up here please to stop me having to answer the question every time. I’ll do my best for you.” Gerrard was speaking after Rangers wrapped up their programme of pre-season friendlies by defeating Derby County 1-0 at Ibrox through Nikola Katic’s 83rd-minute header.

Their bid to dethrone eight-in-a-row Premiership champions Celtic kicks off at Kilmarnock on Sunday and Gerrard is satisfied they are in good shape for the challenge ahead.

“I’m very pleased and proud of their efforts through pre-season,” he said. “But now it’s time to get themselves ready. They’ve got seven days to get ready domestically for a huge season. But pre-season has been successful. We’ve only conceded one goal and had some good tests here in Marseille, Blackburn and Derby.

“Twelve months on, it’s only natural to have a better feel for the challenges that are going to come your way.

“I’m very much a person who tries to analyse and learn from my mistakes. I know my staff are doing everything they can to learn from where we went wrong last season, where we misjudged.

“You hope your players are professional enough to do the same. So, of course, we are more prepared in terms of knowing what is coming. But the difficult thing is to go and prove we have improved, that we are a better team and have progressed.”

Gerrard, meanwhile, says out-of-favour Albanian winger Eros Grezda, pictured, is no closer to leaving Rangers despite reported interest from French clubs Brest and Dijon.

“We’ve had two or three loan requests for Eros but they don’t satisfy what we are looking for at the moment,” said Gerrard.