HE is the matador that takes no bull, the manager with his eyes on the prize. Pedro Caixinha is the gamble that must pay off for Rangers.

The Portuguese coach has made many stops on his journey in the game but it is Ibrox that he will call home for the next three seasons with the Light Blues.

After seeing his first game at Parkhead on Sunday and holding his maiden press conference on Monday, Caixinha will meet his players at Auchenhowie today as he gets down to business.

The 46-year-old, a former goalkeeper and keen bullfighter, has been plucked from Al-Gharafa in Qatar and charged with restoring Rangers to the top of Scottish football.

It is undoubtedly a challenge for Caixinha. It is another that he will not shirk.

“I don't fight bulls. Bulls try to fight me,” Caixinha said.

“I am a frontal guy. As I think you already saw. When I need to speak something, I speak something in front of you - if I need to say something to you.

“If that means I am a tough guy then I am a tough guy. But I am a demanding guy.

“The first person I need to be demanding with is myself. If I am demanding with myself, this is about results, this is about winning. I cannot let the other guys be less demanding than me.

“So I am a guy who has one quote - maximal freedom, maximal responsibility, okay. So let it go like this.

“I am not a policeman. You know the work you need to do.

“I am not here to control you. But if you go from the line, it doesn't matter who you are.

“This is a collective sport, not an individual one. I am not an individual guy.

“I don't want one player who can maybe solve one or two matches, I want one team who can maybe win all the matches in a steady state.”

Caixinha has set himself high standards and will demand only the best from his squad. Like Rangers, second isn’t good enough for the Portuguese.

He has had spells at the likes of Sporting Lisbon, Panathinaikos, Rapid Bucure?ti and Santos Laguna throughout a nomadic career in the dugout that has taken him across the world.

There are few places as intense as Glasgow, few clubs as successful as Rangers. Caixinha has stepped into the Scottish football goldfish bowl and he is confident he can more than keep his head above water.

He said: “That is perfect. For me that is perfect - totally different. More similar to Mexico.

“Here is my daily schedule. Normally I will get to Murray Park around 7am.

“You ask me what time I will leave I don't know. Because my schedule is my 'to do' list.

“Maybe some time I will leave about 7 o'clock in the evening. Maybe sometime I will leave just after training. Maybe sometime I will leave at 11 o'clock at night.

“I am a working guy, a family guy. Of course I know I am going to be exposed like that but please try to keep the family apart from this.

“Yes [I will enjoy it], because I am a quiet guy and dedicated to the work. I also know that because I am a little bit of a workaholic that sometimes I need to cut it out.

“I say let's cut it out, let's have one day, two days off if you have it on the schedule with no football, recharge the batteries then start again.

“On those days I can go out for one dinner in a week, or maybe twice, I can go out to watch one movie, or one show. It is more or less like that. No more than that.

“I am addicted to my work. If I don't have work, I have nothing else.

“For me, the life of a football coach is 24 hours less the time you spend with your family.

“Now, because my family is not here, let's say that the 24 hours are for football.”

Caixinha will make his dugout debut as Rangers boss on Saturday when Hamilton Accies make the trip to Ibrox and has already set targets this term as he looks to clinch second spot in the Premiership and lift the Scottish Cup.

The decision to appoint a relative unknown as Mark Warburton’s successor has been questioned in some quarters. It is a risk, but the ambivalence is nothing new.

“I faced the same situation when I went to Mexico,” Caixinha said.

“I would just say one thing – at least give us the benefit of the doubt. Let us work. Then they can evaluate our work.

“We are exposed to it, not just here but all the football coaches in the world, they’re all in this situation. It’s even bigger here because we’re at Rangers.”

It was in Mexico where Caixinha enjoyed his most successful stint as a boss as he led Laguna to a hat-trick of major honours and the final of the CONCACAF Champions League.

He spent three years with the Warriors before heading to Doha and he is keen to make a lasting impression in Glasgow.

“I always believe in projects,” Caixinha said. “For me projects have to be one process and you know that from that one process you are going to get one product.

“It’s like one factory. You manufacture one product but it takes a process to get it. For me, football is the same thing.

“And the process needs time to get the product you really want to build. I believe in the long term.

“When you say that I move around for some reasons along my career, it happened more when I was an assistant. The long-term job that I had was the one when my philosophy and the club’s philosophy were matching.”