Philippe Clement knows he's put his Rangers players through their paces when other teams have been resting during the winter break.
But the Belgian is hopeful that the club's winter training camp in Spain will have given his players 'extra powers' in the months ahead.
Rangers have been training hard at La Manga over the past few days and even fitted in a closed-doors friendly against Hertha Berlin.
That game ended in a 1-0 defeat, and it certainly looked like the sort of showing that was exactly how what you'd expect after a break away from football.
The hard work continues this week with another friendly against FC Copenhagen at Ibrox tomorrow night, before the competitive action returns with the fourth round of the Scottish Cup on Saturday evening at Dumbarton.
Clement insists the idea of pushing his players at this stage is so they have the endurance to go the distance, with the cup, Europa League and Premiership still all to play for.
"We saw good things on a pitch that was not the best," the 49-year-old said. "We tried to play with a good tempo on a pitch that also wasn’t the biggest, to create space against a team that didn’t want the ball and waited for transitions.
“So those are the circumstances that make it more difficult to score the goal. I see the good intentions with a lot of players and I saw the effort, which is what we need for the moment.
“They will have the profit of that in the next couple of weeks because the players are going to go really deep this week and in the week to come. But it will give them extra powers for the next couple of months.”
