RANGERS manager Mark Warburton last night revealed he is trying to bring in an "outstanding pedigree" midfielder on loan who he believes will “excite the fans”.

The Englishman, whose team was knocked off second spot in the Ladbrokes Premiership with their 2-0 defeat to Hearts at Tynecastle on Wednesday night, is missing several players in that area.

Niko Kranjcar, Jordan Rossiter and Josh Windass are all out injured at the moment while Joey Barton left the Ibrox club last month.

Warburton declined to name his target, who currently plays abroad, because he fears alerting rival clubs to his availability.

Read more: Graeme Souness on Warburton, Dave King and the future for Rangers

However, he believes the Rangers supporters will be delighted if the Championship winners can fend off stiff competition for the player's services next month.

“We’re looking at an overseas midfield option for January,” he said. "I hope we can get a dynamic, goalscoring midfielder.

“I can’t tell you who he is, but what I can tell you is there are three or four other clubs in for the same player.

“He has got an outstanding pedigree and we are trying to get hold of him. He is an overseas player, playing at a very high level. We hope we can get him.

Read more: Graeme Souness on Warburton, Dave King and the future for Rangers

“From our point of view, we have tried a few and they have fallen through for various reasons.

“It would be a loan deal. If it comes down to the money, we won’t get this player, so therefore we have got to offer something different.

“I hope it is one who will excite the fans. A few of them won’t have heard of him, but when you look at his pedigree, it will start to excite the fans. We know very much what he can do.”

Warburton added: “There’s no doubt losing Josh, Jordan, Niko – and Joey for different reasons – has hit the midfield pretty hard. So we’ve got to look at that situation and find a solution to it.

“Niko is out for the season, he’d been coming into his prime, was starting to boss the games. We’ve lost a very good player in Niko, someone a bit different and we need to replace that.

“Jordan has been frustrated by injury. Josh slipped on the astroturf at Partick. He has a grade one hamstring and will be seven to ten days.

‘”We’ve been a bit unfortunate in that department, no excuses. But we’ve got to look at it and January will hopefully give us a chance to do that.”

Meanwhile, Andy Halliday has admitted the Rangers players fear getting dropped if they fail to perform to the best of their abilities despite the number of squad members who are currently out injured.

First team regulars Barrie McKay and Martyn Waghorn have both found themselves out of the team recently due to dips in form and Michael O'Halloran and Joe Dodoo have been given a chance to show what they are capable of.

Read more: Graeme Souness on Warburton, Dave King and the future for Rangers

“That’s why we’ve brought in a lot more squad additions this year," he said. "We had a very light squad and unfortunately the case was last year that we were down to the bare bones towards the end of the season. It was pretty much the same 18-man squad that was out every game.

“But now we’ve got a lot of good players competing for places. There’s been a bit of rotation the last few weeks, the likes of Joe Dodoo came off the bench and scored a couple of goals last weekend and then thought he got an equaliser against Hearts. He took the goal that was disallowed really well. So we’ve got good players coming in to take anyone’s jersey."