Gio van Bronckhorst in Rangers title vow as he names key battleground that will decide Celtic trophy fight

Brand new season. Same old problem. How exactly do Rangers intend to go about ram-raiding Celtic’s trophy cabinet and bringing the title back across Glasgow’s great divide?

It has resided there for 10 of the last 11 years after all and even when Steven Gerrard successfully managed to get his hands on the trophy, it was already slipping from his grasp before he jumped ship to Aston Villa midway through last season. Now it’s Gio van Bronckhorst ’s turn to solve this puzzle which spans back over a decade.

The Dutchman has certainly made a solid start to his work this summer with Besiktas left-back Ridvan Yilmaz his seventh new recruit of a hectic transfer window. The young Turkish international finalised his move on Monday as Van Bronckhorst was throwing open the doors of Ibrox to let fans get a close-up look at an open training session – just five days before the big kick-off at Livingston on Saturday lunchtime.

And it’s fixtures precisely like this one which Van Bronckhorst has identified as holding the key to unlocking the big conundrum. Rangers’ first away day last season ended in defeat at Dundee United. Not long after they were drawing at home to Motherwell, Hearts and Aberdeen.

Two more points were dropped at Pittodrie and two more at Ross County before drawing another twice away at Tannadice and at home to Motherwell. In other words Rangers frittered away a campaign-shattering 17 points from games not against Celtic. And lost the league by just four.

No wonder then van Bronckhorst is demanding the bar is raised significantly when they arrive in West Lothian for Saturday’s showdown at the Spaghetti-had. He said: “We need to have the consistency to win every game. Of course, the Old Firm games last year were