THE defeat to Livingston at the Toni Macaroni Arena on Sunday wasn’t what anyone at Rangers wanted, and the performance as a whole certainly fell below what manager Steven Gerrard would expect, as well as the standard that has been set so far this season.

And there is no doubt that it is a black mark on what has been a very impressive start to Gerrard’s managerial career at the club.

Despite that being the fourth league game that Rangers have played away from home in the league and the fourth they have failed to win though, it isn’t a sign of a pattern or a cause for concern for me.

Things just simply didn’t go Rangers’ way on the day at a tough venue. The manager said after the game that his side could have played all day and not breached that Livi defence, and I would agree with that assessment.

But sometimes you have to give the opposition the credit for being so difficult to play against. Livingston are a team that is flying under Gary Holt, and while it was a slack goal to lose from a Rangers perspective on Sunday, it was really the misfiring forward line that didn’t perform on the day.

Given how well the attacking players have done so far this term though, then you can allow them a rare off-day. Alfredo Morelos and Kyle Lafferty have been great, and the wide players have to, so I would chalk it up to a collective bad day at the office rather than a sign of anything deeper.

Rangers have been at some of the toughest venues in the league so far and when they have been beaten, as they also were at Celtic Park, there is no argument that they got what they merited on the day. However, they were unfortunate not to come away from Pittodrie and Fir Park with more than the point they did gain from each of those games after conceding last-gasp equalisers.

I can see why that might lead to some people saying that there is still a soft centre to this Rangers side, but I don’t think that is the case at all.

Look at the spine of the team from Allan McGregor in goals, any two of Connor Goldson, Nikola Katic or Joe Worrall at the back who are all aggressive, Lassana Coulibaly in the midfield and the likes of Lafferty up front. Nobody can tell me that is a side who are a soft touch by any stretch of the imagination.

Any setback you get as a Rangers player is tough to take, but if you are going to be a Rangers player then it is something you have to deal with quickly. You have to take it on the chin and move on to the next challenge, and I think that Gerrard has drilled that mentality into these players already.

Look at the places they have been in Europe this season and come away with results. You don’t do that if you don’t have mental strength within the team and the squad, and I think they will show that over the coming weeks.

It is still very early days when it comes to the league. Hearts are top of the table and deservedly so, but when the prizes are being given out in May, I fully expect it to be Rangers and Celtic that will be battling it out for the title.

Rangers are still gelling and coming together. The early signs have been really promising on the whole in terms of the quality of play and the resilience that the side have shown under the new manager compared to anything that has come before over these last four or five years, but there will be the odd hiccup.

And let’s not forget that Celtic have yet to win a match away from home in the league either. Over the years, I’ve learnt that one of the biggest things in football is perception, but you can’t be labelling Rangers as being soft on the road because they haven’t won an away game when Celtic haven’t done so either.

The league is getting harder and opposition teams are getting better all the time, which is good for the game in Scotland as a whole. But it means that the big boys won’t have it all their own way week-in week-out like they might have used to.

Following that logic, then points will be dropped along the way, of course that is going to happen. But over the course and distance it will be the two best teams in the league by a country mile in my opinion – Rangers and Celtic – who will drop the fewest.

You will find that the gap between Hearts and Rangers and Celtic will narrow - and I think that will start this weekend - before they are eventually overtaken and left behind.

There will be a gap eventually between Rangers, Celtic and the rest. The only thing I’m not sure of yet is who will come out on top of those two.