Motherwell boss Graham Alexander says the challenge presented by Rangers on Sunday is exactly what persuaded him to take the job at Fir Park.
Former Scotland and Burnley defender Alexander says he wants to test himself and his team at the highest level, and is conscious that they will receive that when Steven Gerrard's men visit Fir Park.
Rangers beat Motherwell 5-1 on their last visit to Fir Park, and also won 4-1 at Ibrox back in December.
Motherwell follow up their clash with the Premiership leaders with trips to Aberdeen and Ross County, and home clashes against Dundee United and Hamilton, either side of a visit to champions Celtic, but says he was well aware of what lay ahead of him when he took the job.
Alexander said: "Rangers in any season is a tough challenge, but they've been on a fantastic run this season, they have quality players and the manager has done a great job.
"I was well aware of what types of fixtures I was coming into, and part of the attraction of the job was to be involved in big games like this.
"There are always big challenges in football and last weekend St Mirren was a big challenge or us. This is football, it's a tough environment, it's a tough competition, and everyone wants to win.
“For me, I just want to see my team play as well as they can, try to implement the things we want to do, week in week out, not just for this particular game.
“We know the task in front of us, we can’t go into any game beaten before the whistle and we’re certainly not thinking like that, but we know it’s a tough game.
“We don’t want to go away from what we want to do. For me, we’re trying to implement how we want our team to play, regardless of the opponent.
“We know it’s going to change, week to week, because of who you’re playing, but for me the biggest target is I want to see my players playing as a team, and going out and giving it their best."
Alexander doesn't have happy memories of coming up against Gerrard as a player, but is pleased to have had that opportunity.
He said: "I’d rather forget those couple of occasions, to be fair. When I was in the Premier League with Burnley we played Liverpool at Anfield and Turf Moor against him and I think he scored a couple of goals and sent us down, actually, so I’ll want to thank him for that on Sunday – no, it wasn’t him, it was over a whole season.
“I got the opportunity to play against big players mainly from my time playing for Scotland and I had that time at Burnley when we were in the Premier League and we came up against people like Steven Gerrard.
"That was a tough task in itself, being 37 didn’t help, but I wanted to challenge myself, I wanted to test myself.
“I had always seen those type of players from afar and I wanted to be up against them, I didn’t shirk away from it, but that’s football and competition - you’ve got to go into it and give it your best shot."
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