The refreshing thing about Giovanni van Bronckhorst’s Rangers team is that we have seen different philosophies applied in a short period of time.
It hasn’t just been plan A and then do plan A better, we have seen aggressive pressing, controlled build up play and possession and against Hearts we saw something else, a pragmatism that was sometimes missing under the previous management – it also makes us harder to prepare for.
At 2-0 up, we didn’t have to open up or chase the game, we let Hearts have the ball and, for all that they had a few chances, if we had ended the game with another couple of goals, nobody could have complained.
Against St Johnstone tonight, we should see an entirely different approach and one akin to the way that we played against Livingston, the personnel might be the same but the instructions given to the players should be totally different given that we are playing the team at the bottom of the table.
It is a packed fixture list and one that will mean we have to rotate players but we have the squad depth to do it, Ianis Hagi, Scott Wright, John Lundstram, Steven Davis and Juninho Bacuna should all be ready to play when called upon even if it is off the substitutes bench.
Our next three games are at home against St Johnstone, St Mirren and Dundee United, none of whom are in any great form, it’s the perfect opportunity for Rangers to build even more momentum ahead of two crucial away games against Aberdeen and Celtic before the winter break – as we’ve seen so far though under Gio, nothing will be taken for granted.