A second-half collapse in Moscow coupled with a 7000-mile round trip back to Glasgow.

Hardly ideal preparation for another crucial domestic test but Steven Gerrard knows he can't allow his players to lose sight of what's important.

The Rangers boss is facing a challenge to lift his squad for the visit of Motherwell after a 4-3 Europa League defeat against Spartak.

Tired legs, yes, but for Gerrard it's a battle fought as much with the mind as with the body.

He insists there's no room for excuses despite the punishing schedule, urging his squad to rise to the challenge and keep tabs on the league leaders.

Gerrard told Rangers TV: “Domestically it is a different challenge for us at the moment because a lot of it is on the back of these big nights and there is big effort going into these games from individual players in the team.

“For me the challenge is to make the players realise how important these games are domestically and that we haven’t got time or preparation time.

"It's about mentality, it's about being a winner and digging in and not taking the European exertions as an excuse into the next fixture."

Preparation time has been limited for Gerrard, with Rangers arriving back in Glasgow during the early hours of Friday morning.

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But despite their Premiership form being patchy overall, they have an eight-game unbeaten run at home to take confidence from.

Gerrard added: “As a manager you always want more time because you want training time, you want preparation time and you want to go in with maximum energy.

“You want to go in with the fittest squad you have got available but with the fixture schedule we have got at the moment that’s not the case.

"So we are asking players to dig in and dig deep, recover well and be professional and try and cope with the fixture schedule.

“We have got good players who all want to play so we’ll put a team out at the weekend that is capable of getting the right result. We just hope the players go and deliver that for us.”