Rangers’ players may still be enjoying what is left of a short pre-season break, but, be sure of one thing, their curiosity will already be drifting back to a far-off land - namely the Palmetto State.

In 11 days’ time, Mark Warburton will take his squad out to the South Carolina city of Charleston ahead of a landmark campaign.

Back in the Scottish top flight, the Ibrox club will spend the best part of two weeks on a Stateside summer training camp where the will be put through their paces over various training sessions, drilled with systems and formations in the class room before they are tested by local side Charleston Battery.

Read more: Mark Warburton needs another striker at Rangers, says Thompson

Pre-season jaunts abroad are nothing new, neither are the rewards that can be reaped with such an exercise.

Glasgow Times:

During his career, former Rangers striker Steven Thompson has clocked up more miles than Judith Chalmers. From Austria with Dundee United to Canada with Alex McLeish’s Gers, the now retired striker knows only too well the pros and cons of some alone time with your team-mates.

“Through the years I’ve been everywhere. Vancouver, Singapore, Germany, Austria, Sweden, Spain, I’ve been about. Portugal as well,” he told SportTimes.

“I’ve been away but don’t think I’ve been gone for two weeks. These things can be great but when you have family it can be difficult, especially if they are young.

“That’s the one thing I noticed when I had kids. Pre-season trips tended to drag in because if your missus is at home with two of them it’s the worst fortnight of her life!

“Quite often we’d be down south so there wasn’t a lot of child care in terms of grannies and stuff. There are benefits but it can be hard.

“When I was with Rangers we went to Toronto, which was brilliant. We were actually in the city centre so when we trained in the morning and not again until the afternoon you could go and have a walk about.Glasgow Times: Steven Thompson will play his last St Mirren game tomorrow

“We would go to the cinema, we went up the CN Tower, we went to a baseball game at night. From that perspective, it wasn’t a boring trip at all.

“On the flip side of that, I remember going with Dundee United to a place in Austria called Obertraun. We were there for about 10 days and we were in the middle of nowhere with nothing round us, there wasn’t even a television in the room.

“That was back in the days before computers or iPads, so I decided to take my guitar out and me and Brian Easton sat and played the guitar for the full 10 days.

“If I was a manager planning a pre-season trip, I’d make sure the boys were working hard. I’d also make sure they had stuff to keep their minds occupied.

Thompson is open about how difficult it can be on young men to be dragged away from their families.

However, he is more keen to stress the positives, the main one being player bonding, particularly with new faces in the camp.

That will be the case for the likes of Joey Barton, Matt Crooks and Josh Windass, and Thompson said: “They can drag in but the best thing about pre-season from a player’s perspective is getting to know your new team-mates.Glasgow Times: Steven Thompson comes away with the ball as Darren Barr looks on (56789496)

“There’s always news players and it gives those guys joining the club the opportunity to bond and bed in. That’s the most important factor of pre-season.

“It’s massive. People making the new players feel comfortable is key and normally you get a wee night out at the end as a bonding session.

“When you are away there is no escape because you are with each other constantly. That’s why some of them can get quite laborious.

“Quite often you are in a training camp in the middle of nowhere with not a lot to do. You are living out of each other’s pockets. You are together 24/7, so when you come back you are glad to have some time to yourself!”

Even though there will be some newcomers to Warburton’s lot as the venture into the Ladbrokes Premiership, Thompson does not anticipate a change to the Englishman’s style of play.

Instead, he thinks the practical element of Rangers’ team in the Deep South will be spent tinkering and topping up rather than implementing a new footballing philosophy.Glasgow Times: Rangers manager Mark Warburton

He said: “The other key thing is to bed in new systems. I can’t see Rangers changing too much tactically.

“Mark Warburton and Davie Weir are set in the way they have the team playing. I don’t see them changing their principles, philosophies, ideas or style of play, even if they are now in the Premiership.

“That’s already been drilled into the most of the players. It may be about letting the new guys know more about how you were playing.

“There is an element about getting your fitness up but a lot of guys return from pre-season already raring to go. It’s not like the old days when I first started playing in the Nineties when you would go off on pre-season for eight weeks.

“You probably wouldn’t do anything for the first four weeks then you would do a few runs. Now, you are running every couple of days and making sure your body fat is down. You look after yourself and that comes with sport science.

“People now come back ready to start with about 80 per cent fitness. For me, it’s about topping guys up and getting them ready.”