We must get back in gear for Old Firm showdown, insists Miller

AKIND schedule for August appeared to offer Rangers a soft landing back from their journey. Having failed to take full advantage, one positive to comfort them is that they remain unbeaten. The other is that the diary for the first month of the campaign was not any more taxing.

Had top-six teams such as Hearts, Aberdeen and St Johnstone been on Rangers’ opening fixture schedule, then the damage would have been much greater than the four points already dropped by the Ladbrokes Premiership newcomers.

The diary, though, becomes more daunting now. Parkhead and Pittodrie loom large in next month’s calendar.

Mark Warburton’s team have looked a shadow of the side which took the Championship by storm and knocked three top-flight teams out of the Scottish Cup last season.

Their most troubling and laboured effort to date, on Friday night when scrambling a 1-1 draw at Kilmarnock, left the club’s most seasoned campaigner Kenny Miller concerned ahead of a fixture he knows all too well cannot be tackled in such a condition.

If the slow-start problems to dog Rangers in their toils against Hamilton, Dundee, Motherwell and Kilmarnock persist at Parkhead on Saturday, September 10, then they can forget about a comeback point.

Celtic will be out of sight on the day — and, potentially, for the entire campaign.

‘You don’t want to be falling too far behind early doors,’ said Miller. ‘You don’t want to be playing catch-up seven, eight or nine points behind because a different pressure falls on to you then.

‘It’s important that we get back to winning ways, albeit the game is at Parkhead and will be a tough one.

‘I think we can draw on the fact we know we have the game in us to trouble Celtic or anyone else.

‘But it’s about putting that whole performance together, not playing a half-hour here and a half-hour there.’

For a half-hour on Friday night, Rangers played against 10 men and still could not find a creak in the Kilmarnock defence to create a cast-iron opportunity for Miller or his new strike colleague Joe Garner to convert.

For the entire first half, they were very poor. The intensity and pace emblematic of their game last season has gone missing.

Warburton is yet to find the midfield mix capable of bringing back that dynamism. Joey Barton operating too deep alongside Jordan Rossiter does not look the answer.

James Tavernier’s superb 58th-minute set-piece strike snared a point for Rangers, cancelling out a deserved Kilmarnock opener and 250th goal in British club football from former Ibrox favourite Kris Boyd in the first half.

‘We seem tentative at the moment to really go for the jugular, to move the ball quickly, pass the ball forward,’ said Miller.

‘Everything that was said after last weekend against Motherwell could be levelled at us again. A goal down again, it took that to give us a kick up the backside and get us in any kind of gear — first, second, third, whatever it was.

‘We just never started well again. In the last two games, the first half has been nowhere near good enough. Second half we’re pressing to try to win the game but, if you give teams a goal of a start, it’s always going to be a struggle. We’re really disappointed with the performance. ‘We could have won it, yes. Should we have won it? I don’t know. When they went down to 10 men you expect us to step up and get three or four good chances. I don’t think we created enough to win the game. ‘We’re unbeaten but it’s not the unbeaten start we would have liked. We wanted maximum points from the four games. ‘After the opening day, you think: “Win the next three and go into the (Celtic) game in a good position”. ‘It’s not to be. We can’t do anything about that now. We need to use the next two weeks to work, improve on things like the intensity of the play in the first half of games.’ Rangers have plenty training-ground work and a friendly against Linfield in Belfast to try to rediscover the tempo that teed up victory the last time they faced Celtic, eliminating them at the William Hill Scottish Cup semi-final stage in April.

‘WE KNOW THAT WE NEED TO WORK ON THE INTENSITY OF OUR GAME’

Miller added: ‘You talk about intensity. That was there that day right from the word go. We dominated. The energy within the team, the legs, there was a real edge to our play. ‘It was the first taste for some at Hampden and they came through it with flying colours. ‘Now look at the calibre of the new lads. They’ve played in big games on big stages. ‘Nothing can prepare you for that (Old Firm) game but the experience is there. There’s no reason why we can’t be threatening from the first whistle. ‘We can do things quicker, get the ball forward quicker, get more bodies forward. It’s definitely something we’ll be looking at to improve on going into the game. ‘We’re hoping we don’t lose sight of what we’re trying to do, that we still have belief in the team. It might be lacking right now but we know we have the ability and players to do that.’

Greg Taylor’s dismissal for a shocking lunge at Barton on Friday was the break Rangers fully expected to take advantage of.

However, there was only frustration for new signing Garner, who made his debut after replacing the injured Joe Dodoo early on.

‘No matter how a team plays against us, it’s up to us to play through them or to break them down,’ said Miller.

‘Motherwell were still sitting in the second half last week but we managed to find a solution.

‘We didn’t do enough to win it against Kilmarnock. Tav had good chances both first and second half but outwith those, I can’t remember too many.

‘Joe’s involvement was limited, we didn’t create enough chances for him. Against 10 men, you’d have liked to create at least one chance for him to nick a winner.’