CAIXINHA TAKES HEART IN DRAW
PEDRO CAIXINHA reckons Rangers have finally earned the respect of their opponents - even though they trail Celtic by five points just three games into the season.
The Ibrox boss was left frustrated as Gers were held to a goalless draw as dogged Hearts held on at Ibrox.
It was not the result the Light Blues faithful were looking for after last week’s dramafilled defeat to Hibernian and they let their boss know about it with a chorus of boos at full-time.
But Caixinha reckons the sight of Jambos frontman Kyle Lafferty spending most of the 90 minutes filling in as a make-shift left-back shows their Premiership rivals are starting to grow wary of his team.
“Of course I know this football club is about winning games,” said the Portuguese boss. “And we know that the boys we have down there in the dressing room are winners. So we keep working in that direction.
“We know we are going to face more opponents like this, respecting us, so that is one point. When I arrived at Ibrox last season I understood that other teams were not respecting us, and today I feel that respect from the way the teams approach the game. That is one step ahead. “We are winners and they are winners and we know that only with hard work and working together we are going to get the results. “I am not surprised [by how defensive Hearts were], just surprised in a good way about how opponents are respecting us
“You see a very good striker like Lafferty spends all the entire match acting more like a left-back than a left winger so that shows the respect they show to us.
“That is the reality, we need to face it and we need to have solutions to turn back what opponents come up with. We need to learn how to beat lower teams.”