STEVEN GERRARD has challenged his players to be ruthless and show more self-belief as the Rangers manager targeted a better Premiership points total.

The Ibrox boss believes his side would be further up the table if they had been able to kill off teams when ahead, such as Aberdeen and Motherwell.

Rangers face St Johnstone at tomorrow boosted by their superb draw against Villarreal in Spain.

And while the manager was full of praise for the players, he made it clear that more is expected of them at domestic level.

Gerrard said: “Sometimes to win games you don’t have to be perfect. But the focus and concentration has to be there all the way.

“I think the scary thing for me as a manager, with where we are right now and a new team, is for us to maybe pick and choose a game – or pick and choose a time within a game – to take our foot off the gas.

“With all due respect, you will get away with it against certain teams. But if you get into that habit of coming off the gas then a team will punish us. They will come back and get an equaliser or a late winner.

“The Motherwell game is an example. We get ourselves in front at 3-2 and we have to be ruthless and get ourselves over the line. Even with 10 men against Aberdeen, as well as we did, be ruthless and get over the line.

“That’s four points. And they could be four big points.

“People might think I am a bit critical after games. It’s not to dig out any individuals or have a go at the team, it’s just to try and keep the standard as high as possible.”

Rangers have struggled to put together a 90 minute performance and Gerrard believes that is down to confidence rather than ability.

He said: “If we use words such as ‘character’ and ‘mentality’ to praise the squad then if there’s a word that sums up where we need to improve it’s definitely ‘belief’.

“Even going back to Shkupi, Osijek, Maribor at certain times...a lot of our play in the first two thirds of the pitch is very good and strong and we get into good areas but we lack that little bit of belief to go and hurt teams and last night in the second half we did that.

“The players took the shackles off and really went for it and showed they can really hurt good players and good teams.”

Gerrard had time to reflect on a good night for him and Rangers as a club in Spain.

A point was probably more than most supporters expected and yet again their time showed character to come from behind twice against one of La Liga’s stronger sides.

Gerrard said: “I’m very satisfied with a fantastic result on the road when you take into account the quality of the opposition.

“It was our first game in the group stage too and Villarreal have some really talented players within their group. I know they haven’t had the best start to the league but they’re in a false position and they will start putting results together and moving up the league.

"The next time we play them they’ll certainly be in the middle of the table if not pushing further up.

"It’s a great result but watching the game back on the flight home there are still some things within it we need to improve upon if you’re ultra-critical and we need to address and try and learn and grow from that.”