ALL the talk for Rangers last season was about ‘Going for 55’ as they attempted to win their first Premiership title in a decade.

Now the focus has to be on 56 for Steven Gerrard, his players and the supporters. A historic season will never be forgotten, but Rangers have to look to the future.

When you are successful as a manager or a player, you have to enjoy it and savour it. But there comes a time when you need to get back down to business once again.

You are only as good as your last game, especially at a club like Rangers, and that is the challenge and mindset you need to have. You know that you have won the championship, but you can’t sit there dwelling on it and drinking champagne every day until the new season starts.

You have to expect a challenge from your biggest rivals or other teams gearing up to improve themselves and you have to go again and raise your own bar every season.

The key to that is having the right mentality. There is no doubt that Steven, Gary McAllister and the staff have that and they will have the right approach during this pre-season.

If there are any players that are idling in the glory of winning the league, they will have a reality check very quickly. Gerrard won’t allow anyone to come off the gas.

Steven obviously had huge highs as a player and he knows how you make that transition from rightly celebrating those triumphs to moving on to the next challenge and the next piece of silverware.

This situation will be new to a lot of the Rangers players. Most of them haven’t won a title before and they will absolutely love that feeling.

If I think back to my playing days and the success we had at Aberdeen under Sir Alex, one of the first wins we had we were on the bus around the city and everyone, to a man, came off and said ‘we want to do this again’.

As time goes on, our mentality increased. We were serial winners and that is what Rangers have to become over the next couple of seasons now.

Yes, they have won 55 and they have stopped Celtic winning ten-in-a-row. But now is not the time to relax, now is the time to go again and experience that feeling again.

You have to go for the second, go for title 56. That is the mindset that Rangers must have and I am sure those messages will be getting relayed every day by Steven and the coaches.

Steven has been under the influence of great managers and great winners and he spoke last season about his relationship with Sir Alex and how he could tap into those great experiences that the gaffer had throughout his career.

That was his mentality. He would celebrate when we won, but then it was quickly onto the next one and he demanded more from you to ensure you kept improving and kept striving for that next win, that next triumph.

Rangers can head into the new Premiership campaign with a foundation upon which to build thanks to the work that Steven has done over the last three seasons and there is a real chance to capitalise on that now.

Steven has brought John Lundstram in from Sheffield United and he looks, to me, like a superb signing for Rangers. He is energetic, he is box-to-box and he can chip in with goals.

He has got fantastic experience from his time in the Premier League and, coming after the signings of Nnamdi Ofoborh and Fashion Sakala, he will be another really good addition to what was already a strong squad.

That is a really shrewd acquisition for Rangers. He will cope with Scottish football extremely well and he could be a big player in Europe as well.

Steven will know where the improvements need to be found in the group and he will want to have success in Europe once again, whether that is the Champions League or the Europa League, and there are clear aims domestically in the coming months.

You have to evolve the squad season after season but those successes and experiences over the last three years will certainly stand Rangers in good stead, especially when it comes to the European competition this term.

Look at the teams that they have beaten under Steven’s guidance and some of the performances that they have put in and the results they have earned.

It will be great to see Rangers back in the Champions League once again and it would be great if they could reach the group stages and then pit themselves against some of the biggest clubs and best players on the continent. Given how impressive they have been in the Europa League, the step up is one that Rangers can relish.

In terms of the domestic game, the main aim has to be to retain the Premiership title and that will once again be the be-all and end-all for Steven and the players this season.

The expectations will be extremely high from the supporters, and from Rangers as a football club, this season and there will be a demand that the title is won again come May.

In the cup competitions, there is clear room for improvement. With all respect to St Mirren and St Johnstone, Rangers should not have lost those games last season.

You have to give credit to both those teams on the day, but Rangers know that if they had performed then they would have won on both occasions.

Rangers have to be ruthless in cup competitions. They should have won more than the Premiership last season and that will be the demand this time around.

Last season was a great one for everyone associated with Rangers. Now they need to make sure that this one is even more successful.