MARK Warburton may be far from enamoured with the changes to the League Cup format which required Rangers to play their first competitive match after just one pre-season friendly. But could there have been any better way for the Ibrox club to get the 2016/17 campaign underway than with victory over Motherwell at Fir Park on Saturday in the opening group game of the Betfred-sponsored competition?

Warburton’s charges travelled away from home to face opponents who last season finished fifth in the Ladbrokes Premiership – the league they intend to launch a challenge for in the months ahead - and won.

They did so, too, without any of the new players Warburton has brought in during the summer featuring in the starting line-up. Niko Kranjcar and Josh Windass both came on in the second half and performed encouragingly. But their fellow new boys either remained on the bench or in the stands.

Joey Barton, Matt Gilks, Clint Hill and Lee Hodson will all feature, either from the start or during the course of the game, in the Betfred Cup match with Annan tomorrow evening. How much better will the Championship winners be with such experienced individuals playing for them? It is a sobering thought for their top flight adversaries.

Certainly, the Rangers players who featured at the weekend will have had their confidence boosted ahead of their opening Premiership match against Hamilton next month as a consequence of their result against Motherwell.

The Glasgow club will unquestionably be a more formidable outfit this season than they were last term as a direct consequence of their extensive close season recruitment drive. They will have to be far more robust defensively than they were at times if they are to vie with Celtic for the Scottish title.

Despite their runaway success in the second tier last season, Warburton’s side was often unconvincing at the back and frequently conceded soft goals. Their woeful performance there in the William Hill Scottish Cup final against Hibs in May was ultimately what led to a painful loss.

There was plenty of evidence in the meeting with Mark McGhee’s side that their fallibility in that key department is still present. They were cut open on numerous occasions in a first half which their hosts dominated. Lionel Ainsworth, Chris Cadden, Marvin Johnson and Scott McDonald all squandered excellent goalscoring opportunities.

Had the opposing players been sharper in the final third, had the game been played later in the season, they would almost certainly have lost. They will punished far more ruthlessly for any slack play defensively in the Premiership where they will be up against a far higher standard of forward.

James Tavernier, the right back who netted no fewer than 15 goals last season, opened the scoring early the second half when he curled a Martyn Waghorn cut back beyond Craig Samson. There can be no doubting his effectiveness going forward. But the same cannot be said when it comes to other areas of his play.

Many of Motherwell’s most effective attacks originated down the left flank where Tavernier was positioned. They were also gifted chances from his underhit passback to keeper Wes Foderingham in the first half and his miscued clearance from an Ainsworth cross in the second. The player admitted the visitors had ridden their luck at times.

“They had a couple of chances in the first half and we might have been lucky that they didn’t put them in,” he said. “But when it came to the second half we should have been five or six up.

“We missed so many chances, and of course it hurts when we do miss these chances. We don’t want to carry on from last season when we were creating loads of chances, but just not putting them in the back of the net. With better opposition in the league we’ve got to be taking these chances.”

That may well be true. But the Rangers rearguard - who were protected by the now departed Dominic Ball, the on-loan Spurs centre half who morphed into a highly effective holding midfielder, in the second half of last season - will have to be far more reliable when under pressure too. That applies to Tavernier in particular.

Still, it is early days. As Warburton was once again at pains to point out, his men had had managed only three weeks of training and one outing, against Charleston Battery in the United States, ahead of this tricky fixture. There may also, with Hodson and Hill now in the squad, be changes to the backline.

The win, which was sewed up with a Waghorn goal in the first minute of injury-time, has increased the belief within the Rangers ranks. “We’re trying to use this (the League Cup) as a sort of pre-season looking towards the start of the league season,” said Tavernier. “So it’s great to have such good opposition for that first game. We’ve set the standard really high.”