Is Graeme Murty onto something?

What a window that was. A glut of incoming, few important losses, and a mightily different shaped squad now compared with how it looked only a few weeks ago. There is so much to discuss and talk about and we will get through as much of it as possible, but all in good time.

We start your February with Graeme Murty, and the project that it appears he is building at Ibrox. Like most fans we had more than our fair share of reservations about Rangers promoting essentially a youth coach to the most important job in Scottish football.

It was a risky venture, and we were hand on heart dead against it. Truth is, we were far from alone. This was an appointment which divided supporters down the middle, and ultimately the lack of a marquee name instead concerned fans who wanted a major patriarch in charge, someone who knew Rangers, the SPL, and could galvanise with modest resources.

It appeared Murty was none of these and most fans were disappointed at best at the announcement.

However, while his (proper) debut was a crushingly disappointing loss against Clarke’s Killie, he has won every single subsequent match bar an excellent draw again at Parkhead, and even his occasional verbal mistakes (Parkhead’s atmosphere is second to none?!) do not detract from what appears to be a slither of momentum on the pitch.

He has settled on 4-2-3-1, a formation his predecessor could not make work, and while Rangers are hardly guilty of a lot of spectacular football, they are getting the results.

Bears of a certain vintage will remember even the colossus that was the 9IAR side did not play consistently great football. It had some extraordinary footballers such as Laudrup and Gazza, of course, but as a team it was filled with winners more than players. It was a team, like Walter’s second spell, that simply knew how to work as a unit and bestride like a titan against everyone, even if it did not play the fanciest footwork at all times.

You only have to ask Celtic fans of the 90s if they would exchange their nifty football under Tommy Burns and the like for the winners’ trophies Rangers boasted back then.

And Murty seems to be extraordinarily cultivating the same kind of winning mentality even when the fare on display does not appear to merit it.

Last night’s win at Bellslea was frankly an eyesore – the football ‘played’ was at times painful to watch, and flowing footwork was completely AWOL. But three decent goals were the difference, more than the difference, and while Rangers’ play at times hurt the eyes, they showed plenty of glimpses of the gulf in class.

But it was the win which counted – and Rangers have only won in 2018. We have to give Murty credit for this. At this precise juncture, he is proving a lot of doubters wrong – how long it will last remains to be seen, but if Rangers keep on building up this head of steam under him, it could be quite a while.

We would say bigger tests under Murty are yet to arrive but the comical irony is he is four points from six against Aberdeen and Celtic this season and that is an exceptional return when we expected so little.

We will talk about the squad and the window’s work in a later entry, but for now, Murty is doing as much as he possibly can.