THE aftermath of the 5-1 defeat his Rangers side suffered at the hands of Celtic in a Ladbrokes Premiership match at Parkhead last month was probably the lowest that Mark Warburton has felt in his time in football as a player, a coach or a manager.

His side had been heavily beaten by their city rivals in front of tens of thousands of their jubilant fans, his new signing Philippe Senderos had been red carded on his debut and the criticism of him and his team, including by the Ibrox club’s own supporters, had been scathing.

Yet, rather than head out with his son, who had travelled up to Glasgow to visit his father and sample the unique atmosphere of another Old Firm game, and try and numb the pain with a glass or two of his favourite red, Warburton forced himself to stay in and watch re-runs of the agonising loss.

Read more: Mark Warburton - I have no problems with BT Sport - or constructive criticism of Rangers

“I didn’t go out,” he said. “My son was up for the game and I didn’t go out the door. I didn’t go out the door because it wasn’t right. I live 100 yards from Waitrose, too, but I didn’t even pop in there. I watched the game. You have to learn.

“The fact of the matter is that it wasn’t right. You have to understand the emotion of the city. I can’t talk about a different level of passion in Glasgow and then not recognise or appreciate it. Imagine me being seen going out that night. I could have been having a quiet glass of wine and a pasta, but it wouldn’t have been right for me.”

It may seem like a masochistic response to such a harrowing experience. But there was method in his madness. Warburton explained the reasoning behind his reaction to the loss yesterday as he looked ahead to the Betfred Cup semi-final against Celtic at Hampden this Sunday.

“If you have a poor performance with ramifications at that level you remember it for a long, long time,” he said. “That was an awful feeling. I don’t want that feeling again."

There was also a full and frank exchange of views between the management team and the players at their next training session. The fallout led to Joey Barton being suspended. But Warburton believes that a desire to avoid the same poor display and subsequent discomfort will motivate them to perform better this weekend.

Read more: Mark Warburton - I have no problems with BT Sport - or constructive criticism of Rangers

Warburton said: “We’d just been stuffed 5-1 so we had to sit there and say: ‘What can we take from this game?’ So it was a very heated discussion. The local boys know what it takes. They knew when they woke up the following morning what the papers, radio and TV shows were going to say. It’s hard. We couldn’t go out. Why would we? We don’t want to feel that way again. That would fire up any player."

Warburton was chastised after the loss to Celtic for suggesting the 5-1 scoreline wasn’t a fair reflection of how his Rangers side had performed. But he stressed again yesterday that Senderos getting sent off just three minutes after he had replaced centre half Rob Kiernan with Harry Forrester had proved extremely costly.

However, he believes that his team, who have won their last two league games against Partick Thistle and Inverness Caledonian Thistle, have improved since that outing and would give a better account of themselves this weekend.

“I have to be very clear that I didn’t think it was fair reflection because of the sending off,” he said. “We lost two centre halves in a heartbeat and suddenly our back line was Lee Wallace, Joey Barton and James Tavernier.

“But what we had to do after the last Old Firm game was go away and work harder. We had to improve the consistency of our performance and I think that’s what we’ve done.

Read more: Mark Warburton - I have no problems with BT Sport - or constructive criticism of Rangers

“Would I have changed my opinion at 3-1 in terms of the attacking substitution? No, because I didn’t know then that we’d get a man sent off. Was it a 5-1 game? In my mind absolutely not. The records will show that it was, but at 3-1 I still felt we could have nicked the next goal. It was a calculated gamble I would take again. I couldn’t have envisaged the sending off.

“We were playing against a very good team and there were other questions we had to ask ourselves. Was our intensity right? Did we play at the kind of level expected of us?

“We know we are getting better and better. We’ve worked really hard because that’s the only answer in trying to win games of football. You can always be shot down in flames, but the best thing we can do is win games of football.

“Since the Ross County game the performances have improved. We got a good result against Inverness last Friday night in what is a very difficult place to go so we’re in good shape."

Rangers had kept one clean sheet in five games going into the last Old Firm match. This time around they have managed to shut out the opposition in four of their previous five outings. Warburton feels that is an indication of how much they have come on.

“I hope that’s a sign of the progress and of us working as a team together,” he said. “The fact is we’ve had a far more compact unit, we’re working as a team and the work is coming together because we’ve produced some clean sheets in tough venues against decent teams. But we’re looking to get even better.”