Caixinha calls on his squad to up the ante

PEDRO CAIXINHA has demanded further improvement from his Rangers squad as he prepares for his second outing as Ibrox manager, writes Chris Jack.

The Portuguese got his reign off to a perfect start against Hamilton before the international break as Rangers ran out comfortable 4-0 winners.

He has now had another fortnight to work with his players at Auchenhowie as attentions have turned to the visit of Motherwell this weekend.

Rangers head into the match third in the Premiership standings but still with a chance of overhauling Aberdeen to finish best of the rest this term.

And Caixinha is keen to see Rangers take another step in the right direction after putting in the hours on the training pitch in recent days.

He said: “It is important to establish the priorities. When you establish them though, we cannot establish everything that my philosophy is going to demand from the team in terms of their performance.

“So, we need to establish some

points which are the basis – for example from the Hamilton game, in our opinion we were very good when we had the ball, trying to attack the opponent’s goal etc, and when we didn’t have the ball we tried to attack the ball – that’s the basis we want to build the team around.

“We have also been working on our set pieces, and we see Scottish football has many different types of set pieces from the opponents we are facing – both attacking and defending – so we are trying to be focused on that.”

Caixinha was able to put most of his squad through their paces at Auchenhowie as he continues to settle into life in Glasgow.

Captain Lee Wallace picked up a knock during his stint with Scotland, while fellow full-back Lee Hodson was an unused substitute for Northern Ireland during their 2-0 World Cup qualifier victory over Norway.

Rangers played a bounce game with members of their first team and Under-20 squads to round off the first week of the international break.

And Caixinha is pleased with the progress his side have been making as the countdown continues to his second Ibrox appearance on Saturday.

“It is important to have time, to have patience and to know how to assess the right points for the players in order to start making key priorities,” said Caixinha.

“That is what we have been working on.”