AP PhotoRangers and Robbie Crawford, center, had more than enough talent to beat Peterhead Sunday, but work and game habits continue to be a worry.

According to the Evening Express, Peterhead manager Jim McInally had a right good moan at Rangers' 1-0 victory on Sunday. He reportedly said, "Rangers have been praised for being professional for beating us 1-0, but they should be doing a lot more with their multi-million pound budget. They should be wiping the floor with every team in the Third Division. A lot of their players are on several thousand pounds a week. They certainly didn't look any fitter than us for a full-time team. They shouldn't be getting any praise - the game really should have been a no-contest."

Is this just sour grapes from a defeated manager and ex-Celt who is unlikely to be seen in the Ibrox megastore buying a 'No.1 Rangers fan' mug, or is it valid criticism that Gers fans have directly or indirectly mentioned themselves?

It’s probably a bit of both. First, it’s extremely bad form for a manager to criticise another team for no other reason than they didn’t fulfil their potential, especially when the opposition boss is no longer in the vicinity.

Considering the ‘tackles’ from the Peterhead players during the match and equally poor comments on social media which saw his club apologising, then maybe McInally should look closer to home for faults or a lack of professionalism.

However, forgetting the motives, it is apparent to some that being happy with sneaking past part-time teams (or amateur in the case of Queen’s Park) is not exactly value for money. Obviously wages will have been much reduced from years previously, but there are still plenty on more than a few grand a week, and yet even the biggest optimist will admit it doesn’t often show.

Is this down to transition period or over-reliance on youth? Maybe, but the biggest fear is that Rangers are not following a proper footballing strategy. This is something yours truly warned about in October and the question still remains unanswered.

Of course Ally McCoist is facing hurdles no other manager in Rangers history has been up against and he is still winning the league by the correct margin, but it can't be said that the type of football on the pitch is anything other than average at best. If we take into account the gap between the teams it might be worse.

He should be the Rangers manager and has given the club the results they needed to survive, but they are no longer on life-support. The focus should now be on growth and ensuring that the young players pick up good professional habits for the future. Are they learning a philosophy of passing, movement and tactical awareness or is winning the next game enough?

And when McInally points out that the fitness of the Rangers players was no different to his own he is saying something noticed by others within the game. Are the Rangers players as fit as they could be? Do they follow a strict eating and training regime? How much junk food and drink is allowed and why?

As said last year on these pages, ‘After all the trauma of last season and the summer, the fans want praise and pink fluffy clouds, but the cold reality is that except for youngsters playing, which seems more necessity than choice, there is no sign that Rangers’ footballing philosophy is being developed. At least not yet.’

Who knows for sure what is happening, but on the surface it’s still not yet.

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