Niko Katic has vowed to fight heaven and earth for his place in the Rangers team – and a tilt at the title.
The Croatian towered above the Derby defence to power home the only goal of the game six minutes from time at Ibrox.
It was the least the Light Blues deserved in a match they dominated against a side that came within a whisker of winning promotion to the Premier League last season.
It also pulled down the curtain on a pre-season campaign in which Rangers have netted 23 times in seven matches, including 12 in three Europa League ties.
Katic admitted his delight at finding the net off Andy Halliday’s corner after being caught napping in the only game his side didn’t win, last week’s 1-1 draw against Blackburn.
This time he shone alongside new boy Filip Helander – making his first start for Steven Gerrard – as Rangers again rotated their squad to give their first-team squad equal game time.
Katic must fight it out with Helander, Connor Goldson and George Edmundson for the two starting spots and the former Slaven Belupo kid has pledged to fight as hard for his place as he will to wrestle the championship from Celtic.
He said: “If you want to win the league and compete in the Europa League you must have good players in each position.
“Every position has two or three quality players and I’m ready for the battle with my team-mates. They are all good players so we will see who gets the jersey this season.
“The squad is definitely better this year. We kept maybe 95 per cent of the players and added others who have quality. We have a really good team. I think we will show that during the season.
“I don’t want to go with the predictions. We will start with the league after Europe but what I can say is that we will go for every point 100 per cent. We will give everything to try to win every game and at the end celebrate together with our fans.
“We should have finished the pre-season without conceding any goals at all but the one we lost was my mistake.
“I’m really pleased with my goal against Derby because they are a really good team and that’s 23 goals in our seven matches.”
The only surprise is it took Rangers so long to breach Derby’s goal but Dutch keeper Kelle Roos was inspired.
Rangers won the corner from which Katic prospered after he had made another fine stop, sticking out his right leg to divert a low shot from Sheyi Ojo around the post.
Rangers were particularly well served by Greg Docherty and Glen Kamara in midfield, with Scott Arfield looking sharper in attack and Helander catching the eye alongside Katic in defence. In fact, the former Bologna star almost opened the scoring on the stroke of half-time with a scorching right- foot shot from Kamara’s low cross that was brilliantly touched over the top by Roos.
In contrast, Gers keeper Wes Foderingham didn’t have a save to make, with Roos also denying Jordan Jones, Docherty and Jermain Defoe in a first half Rangers bossed.
They were even more purposeful after the break when former Gers frontman Martyn Waghorn diverted a goalbound shot from Kamara over the top and Roos again denied Defoe and Arfield before Alfredo Morelos, a late sub, was also thwarted.
Gers boss Gerrard said: “We should have won it more comfortably. After 25 minutes we were really good. We finished the first half much stronger than the opposition. There was only one team in it in the second half and if it wasn’t for a top level keeper, we would’ve won by four or five.
“We were much the dominant team but we started with too much respect for Derby. It took us 11 minutes to make a tackle, 18 minutes to release a shot on goal through Greg Docherty.
“Then you saw the crowd come with the team. We started to play and were outstanding.
“Don’t read anything into starting XIs. This was the last rehearsal of pre-season so some of the decisions were to give people minutes. It was the right time to play Helander for 60 minutes because he is now two and a half weeks in. You can see he is getting close to where we want him to be.
“Katic, Docherty and Kamara all needed 90 minutes. It has been a case of trying to balance the minutes out through the whole of pre-season.”
Derby boss Phillip Cocu said: “It was an excellent friendly game, with a high level of play and good tactics. However, I have to be honest, the victory was deserved for them.”
