PEDRO CAIXINHA has pleaded with the Rangers support not to panic after his misfiring lot failed to hit the target in a closed-door defeat to St Johnstone.

The Light Blues have been forced to schedule non-competitive matches after their premature European exit left their pre-season calendar empty.

However, there was no friendly fire as the Portuguese’s side went down 1-0 to fellow Euro flops St Johnstone at Murray Park with Callum Hendry netting the only goal.

In their games against Progres Neiderkorn Rangers managed to find the back of the net just once and after drawing another blank, Caixinha insists the goals will come as the Premiership season looms large.

“The boys are getting the message and getting the idea,” said the Rangers head coach. “We are creating a lot of scoring chances and we know the goals are going to appear at the right moment.

“There is nothing to be shocked or alarmed about – if the team was not producing or the team was not playing or giving the philosophy we want from them, then I would be worried.

“The boys are getting along, most of them are getting into the same rhythm and, for sure, on Saturday we will be better, next Sunday we will be better and most definitely the following Sunday we will be better for our target which is August 6.”

Rangers fielded a strong starting XI for the game that saw Graham Dorrans get his first run out since making his switch from Norwich earlier this month.

In a bizarre moment, the official St Johnstone Twitter feed claimed Niko Kranjcar had been asked to leave the pitch by the match referee, with TV pictures showing the Croat being told to get off the park after an angry reaction to a rash first-half challenge.

Despite the incident, Caixinha remains positive about what he saw from his team, and added: “I believe in the first half especially, in what was a team which you could call close to the first XI, they totally understood what we want if you exclude the chances we had and didn’t score.

“It was very, very good and the opponent didn’t have any chances at all to get in the game and perform their own game.

“We were performing our game – being balanced in attack, having a presence in the box and creating and scoring chances, but not scoring.

“I am happy with that as that is the basis of the work. We know the players are heading in that direction and we still have time to build the momentum we want for August 6 [against Motherwell].”

Caixinha’s focus now turns to Saturday’s visit of Marseille to Ibrox in what will be only their third of four games in front of a crowd before that Premiership opener at Fir Park.

Without doubt the French outfit will be the toughest test the Portuguese’s misfiring players will have come up against, but he insists he’s relishing the challenge.

He told Rangers TV: “It is going to be a great test for us to see how we need to control and understand the game.

“Sometimes we can play with our style and others we need to be more worried about closing spaces, so game management is going to be very interesting for us to understand that.

“We have to be one step ahead with regards to how we want to play against a big team like Marseille.”