DARREN McGREGOR has insisted the shock resignation of caretaker boss Kenny McDowall will galvanise the Rangers players.

McGregor was taken aback when he discovered earlier this week that McDowall had handed his notice in to the Ibrox board.

But the former St Mirren centre-half is positive it won't affect the performances of the Gers team on the park in the coming weeks.

Speaking ahead of the SPFL Championship match with Cowdenbeath at Central Park today, he said: "Obviously, it was a bit of a body blow, but you just deal with it.

"That's football for you. He came in on Tuesday and we had a wee discussion about it and cleared the air and that's it, you move on. We trained as normal.

"In any walk of life you get ups and downs, and football is no different. In football, it's maybe intensified a bit. Over the past year or so here it's maybe intensified, too, because of what has gone on here on and off the park.

"But personally I just concentrate on the objective - which is to win on a Saturday and everything else you just put the blinkers on."

McGregor added: "It's not in my character to ease up. I'm pretty sure with the group of boys we have in that dressing room, that's not going to be the case.

"If anything, we'll be pressing harder on the pedal just to try and prove a point knowing that other people have been thinking we'll falter. We just need to battle against that.

"It might make it a wee bit more difficult, but coming to a club like Rangers, it's difficult at the best of times, so you just roll with it and get on with it.

"It might not be the best build-up to the Celtic game tomorrow week, but we can only control what's in our spectrum - turning up and applying ourselves in training and in games. Everything else we need to block it out like a professional which we are.

"You need to block out the negativity. You can probably use it for motivation or just totally ignore it and I tend to do that."