IT may only have lasted nine minutes or so, but Glenn Middleton believes that every second of his Old Firm debut off the bench at Celtic Park in September will prove invaluable to him.

Certainly, the experience will come in handy if the winger is granted his Christmas wish by getting the nod to start in Saturday’s Old Firm game at Ibrox, and he will be looking to grasp any opportunity to impress in the games against St Johnstone today and Hibernian on Wednesday to make that dream become a reality.

“[My Old Firm debut] was massive for me,” Middleton said. “Obviously I'd have preferred the three points, but at the same time it gave me a taste for it, and I'm desperate to change things in the future.

“I’m grateful for all the opportunities [the manager]’s given me but none of that means anything if we don't get the three points.

“I’m further ahead in terms of my own progress than where I thought I’d be by now but I just need to take it session by session, game by game, and hopefully see where it leads me.

“The fact the schedule has been so busy has been good for me. No-one ever wants to see someone get injured but when it happens, you have to be able to step up. We’re all in it together, we’re all a team and we want to do as well as we can as a team.

“The schedule has been tough but those are the demands on you at a club like this. You have to answer the questions asked of you.

“I just need to focus on consistency and showing that I’m trusted to do whatever job is asked of me.”

It is not only his expectations of his own personal growth that have been surpassed for Middleton, but the development of the Rangers team as a whole since Steven Gerrard’s arrival in the dugout.

“I definitely think we’ve proved people wrong,” he said. “We’re answering questions every week.

“Different teams are coming up against us and showing us different challenges, and we’ve shown we can compete.

"We're confident in ourselves that we can overcome challenges we come up against - we've shown that already this season.

“We know what we want to achieve. It's why we're here - to win trophies and be successful as a team.”