JERMAIN DEFOE is confident a new focus around Steven Gerrard’s squad will help Rangers find the improvements necessary to earn silverware success this season.

The striker was on target, alongside Joe Aribo, at Ibrox on Sunday as a 2-0 win ensured the Light Blues moved six points clear of Celtic in the Premiership title race.

It has been an encouraging start to the campaign for Rangers and this latest league win rounded off a satisfying week that also saw victories earned in the Old Firm clash at Parkhead and the Europa League opener with Standard Liege.

Rangers have seen their last two title challenges quickly fall apart after the winter break but Defoe is encouraged by what he has seen on and off the park so far this term.

He said: “The standard is really high. People don’t see what happens around the training ground and I have noticed a different focus. Last season was focused, of course, because you have to be playing for a football club like this.

“But there is a different sort of focus from the staff, the manager, the players, everyone involved. What the lads are doing in the gym, not just the senior players but the younger players, the whole aspect.

“You need that. If you want to achieve something special you need that and that is what I can feel at the minute.

“I think it is a number of things really. We want to come first. The long lay-off with no football, you come back and you are playing again. When that is taken away from you, something that you love doing and are used to doing, you can’t wait to get back.

“It is a number of things. We are in a good place at the minute but you can’t rest on your laurels. We want to improve every day and we will see what happens.”