By Stewart Fisher

NICKY Law, the Rangers midfielder, feels that Mark Warburton's high-flying Rangers side can have realistic ambitions of winning either the William Hill Scottish Cup or the League Cup this season. The Ibrox side have won all 10 of the Englishman's matches in charge, scoring 38 goals and conceding just five, but their acid test can be expected to come against Ladbrokes Premiership sides in the cup competitions. The first one of those arrives when St Johnstone visit Ibrox in the League Cup in nine days' time and the Ibrox side's English midfielder sees no reason to talk down his side's chances. Chairman Dave King said this week that he expects the Ibrox side to compete for the title in the top flight next season, while Rangers have twice reached the last four of the national cup competitions during their four-year exile from the top flight, going down 2-0 to Celtic in the League Cup last season, and going down 3-1 to Dundee United in the last four of the Scottish Cup back in 2013-14.

“I think it always has been realistic during my time here," said Law. "It has always been something we’ve looked to do. We’ve been to a couple of semi finals and just missed out.

"We’ll be looking to do the same again although you can never guarantee how far you can go in cup competitions," he added. "But we feel we want to go all the way in all four competitions we are in. Whether we will is another matter, of course.

“But with the football we are playing now and the amount of goals we are scoring, we feel we can go all the way in all the competitions. We can’t get too far ahead of ourselves but we’re certainly confident that in whatever competition we are in, whoever we face we can beat them.”

Law, who scored his first goal of the season in the low-key 3-0 win against Livingston on Saturday, feels the meeting with Tommy Wright's side, one of Scotland's European representatives this term, will be a true barometer of the Ibrox side's progress under the former Brentford manager. “It is always a good test when you play a team from the top division," he said. “We managed to beat them last year in the cup and we’re looking to do the same again. But we have come a hell of a long way in a short space of time and I think that will be a big test. We have a league game against Dumbarton away from home first, and for different reasons that’s also a test. It’s a difficult place to go and we want to get that out the way before we go into the cup tie. But we’ll certainly be looking to put a marker down to people and to show that we are on the way back.”