THE Rangers' players have got to expect that teams will get in their faces and get stuck into them.

Rangers are the big fish in the small pond and all of that goes with the territory.

You just can't think teams are going to lie down to you because you are wearing the light blue.

When teams know their opponents are of a superior quality, they resort to being physical - and that is what is happening with Rangers.

Recently, Arnold Peralta and Bilel Moshni have been red-carded and these sendings-off were both because of the treatment they were getting.

In Peralta's case, he had already been involved in an altercation and then was involved in a rash challenge while Moshni's was more for verbals than anything else.

Ian Black is also being punished because of his accumulation of disciplinary points and they are really a result of retaliation for the heavy tackles he takes in midfield.

When I was playing for Rangers I always remember Jock Wallace warning us that we had to "get our retaliation in first". Jock always made the point that when you played a lesser team the most important thing was to win the physical battle.

If you did that across the pitch then you would prevail because you would be able to make the most of your superior ability.

Right now, Rangers are not winning the physical battles even though they are winning the wars by taking three points.

The players need to realise they are all targets for the teams in SPFL League One and they have to learn to deal with that.

That is the answer because you are no good to Rangers sitting in the stand.

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