Michael Beale has opened up on his Rangers half-time message that sparked victory over Dundee United.
The Light Blues scored two quick-fire second half goals through in-form Fashion Sakala and Malik Tillman to pick up a vital three points on the road at Tannadice and bring the gap between themselves and league leaders Celtic back down to nine points.
The 2-0 win also maintains Beale's unbeaten record as Ibrox boss with five wins and one draw to date. He was minutes away from a perfect record but Kyogo Furuhashi struck in the final moments of the New Year Old Firm derby after Ryan Kent and James Tavernier had turned the game on its head following Daizen Maeda's early opener. Focus now turns to the Viaplay Cup as Rangers face Aberdeen at Hampden this weekend in the semi-finals. The winner will advance to the first domestic cup final of the season and come up against one of Celtic or Kilmarnock.
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On his half-time message to his players, he told Rangers TV: "We spoke about running off the ball more, we spoke about playing closer together, and we also spoke about less errors on our final pass and shot - that was going to be the outcome of the game - could we be ruthless in the box and within maybe 10 minutes of the second half we got ourselves in a great position.
"I actually thought we managed the game really well too, and might have gone on to score one or two more but if we can't, the clean sheet is really important.
"I think that is three clean sheets in six games now which is a sign that we are moving in the right direction defensively as well.
"Passing and running, it is a really hard thing. The higher up the level you go, teams run forward more off the ball and I felt in the first half, we were a little bit static, we had good possession and we needed to beat a team that was sitting deep and trying to play on the counter.
"We managed to stop all counter attacks today and we didn't give away many set-plays, and once we actually started running forward off the ball, we caused a lot of problems.
"We scored two really good goals, so I am delighted and now we can focus on the big semi-final next week which is hugely important to everybody."
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