There’s no escpaing it, Rangers suffered one of the worst results in their history on Tuesday night. The defeat to Progres Niederkorn was certainly the most humiliating European result their fans have ever experienced.

The context of the 2-1 aggregate defeat is stark reading. Progres are currently the fourth best team in Luxembourg going on the most recent standings and before their victory over Pedro Caixinha’s match had never won a European game, scoring just one goal and conceding 41.

It’s sent shockwaves around the Rangers support but also around Scottish football. The performance of teams from Scotland from Europe continues to reach new lows and the entire country is at serious risk of falling even further behind in the country rankings.

For the Light Blues though the situation is more urgent with major work needed done before the start of the domestic campaign.

Here are THREE constructive steps we feel could help them massively before the Scottish Premiership kicks off…

Build a schedule of challenging friendlies

Rangers next competitive match isn’t until 6th August when they face Motherwell, which is over a month beyond the game in Luxembourg, meaning Pedro Caixinha has a struggle on his hands to get his team up to peak match fitness.

The Sun revealed in the wake of the Progres defeat that there are no scheduled friendlies for the Rangers first team between now and the league kick-off.

The club were clearly banking on making some sort of progress in European qualifying. Had they made it through, the fixtures would have been plentiful and the perfect warm up for the Scottish Premiership.

They now need to put together a strong set of friendly fixtures against testing opposition if they are to get themselves into shape.

Caixinha needs to know what his team are all about in adversity so securing matches against the highest standard of team possible would be ideal to really put his new recruits and the talent already at Ibrox through the gauntlet they need, without the pressure of competitive football.

Less signings, more team building

No-one would argue that Rangers didn’t need signings this summer but even for a team in need of reinforcements, the revolution at Ibrox has been quite extreme this early in the transfer window.

A massive nine players have arrived so far with five first-teamers from last term heading the opposite way either permanently or on loan.

Pedro Caixinha is certainly effecting change and stamping his mark on the squad but has it been too much, too soon? The argument for bringing in players early is so they can get up to speed for European football quicker but now that hasn’t panned out, it’s time to change it up a bit.

The performances against Progres Niederkorn looked like a team that had never played together before and although Rangers have been in pre-season for a few weeks now, that turnover of players is bound to create a unbalanced XI initially.

It’s time for Caixinha to focus on what he has instead of what he wants and build a cohesive team rather than a collection of talent he thinks can do a job. He has the talent there now and it’s time to mould that into a unit.

Forget the hubris and gimmicks

From Dave King criticising Celtic for not being further ahead than they are and Pedro Caixinha dictating that his players shouldn’t wear green boots and plastering slogans inside Ibrox, Rangers have been hitting the headlines this summer mostly for reasons off the pitch, Tuesday’s result aside. It’s time for that to change, button up and do the hard work on the training pitch.

A period of near radio silence is probably needed over the next few weeks. Fans don’t need to hear the latest Caixinha gimmick from the training ground or Dave King’s outlandish claims, they just want to see an effective team on the park going about their job in a professional manner. The hubris has come back to bite them this week and it’s not a great situation for anyone at the club right now.

If they start the Scottish Premiership campaign with a few wins, all of this will be old news and they can task themselves with having the season in the top-flight and cups they think they can, but actions speak louder than words and it’s time to get on with the business.