New manager Pedro Caixinha described Ibrox as being ‘our fortress’ following his opening game victory over Hamilton Academicals at the weekend.
Having come in as Mark Warburton’s replacement only a few days ago in reality, he picked up the four nil victory in his first game in charge with goals coming from Emerson Hyndman, Martyn Waghorn, Clint Hill and Lee Wallace and the 46 year old was bowled over with his experience of the fans across the 90 minutes.
Speaking to the Official Site to give his post game press conference following the showing, the 46 year old explained that it was simply a ‘fantastic reception’ that he’ll never forget.
‘It was fantastic when I first walked out; it was a fantastic reception and when we receive this type of support we are not playing with 11 we are playing with a lot more than that. This is our home, this is our fortress and we want to keep it like that and we want the fans to help us in this winning culture that we are trying to create.’
Caixinha added.
‘We are pleased with today, especially with the behaviour that the players showed on the pitch after just four days of work; they tried to perform those behaviours so we are happy with that. We still know that we have a lot of work in front of us but it is always good to have a good start and a good start in the direction you want to change the behaviour.’
With the new man and his backroom staff only having four days to get to know the team and work on changes he wants to introduce, he went on to praise the performance of the players and also praised them for quickly taking on board his suggestions.
‘I think the things we did that we`d worked on were the tempo, the intensity, the movement and especially playing more in the wide areas, the reaction when the team were losing the possession and the teamwork too. I liked it a lot today; I like that type of situation with the team. I believe with the behaviours that first of all you have to understand it, be convinced of it and you need to get into a habit.’
Clearly this will be something that is continually worked on between now and the end of the campaign.
‘You cannot create a winning culture; it is deeper than a winning mentality. This is just the basis of what we aim to do, we want more, we want to do more and be more demanding on the players.’
With Clint Hill’s goal on the day coming from a corner and with him registering three in three, he came in for praise from the new man at the helm. It was Hill’s sixth goal of the season.
‘I will play Clint Hill up front when we have set-pieces for sure! I believe that most of the game, forty percent of the game, is decided on set-pieces so it is important to have key players involved in those situations. We also need to have good delivery and the delivery from Jon Toral was something very good and we need to keep working on that. You saw that we have good takers and that we have good player attacking the space so we will keep working on that.’
With a break now for international games and Rangers not back in action until we turn into the month of April, Caixinha knows it’s the perfect time to really get to work with the players on his philosophies as a gaffer.
He also revealed they would only have one day off during the break to rest up.
‘It is a fantastic moment now because we have an international break so in two weeks there will be more or less 13 days of work. It is going to give us more time to focus on the detail, to add some more behaviours and it is going to be an important two weeks of work.’
