It is perhaps telling of Rangers’ current place in the Scottish football food chain that there is talk of making statements in the battle for second in the forthcoming double-header with Aberdeen, but for Declan John, that’s exactly what these games represent.

And for the Ibrox side, even in their current state of flux, it is an aim that should plausibly be attainable. The breaking out of a bit of pragmatism from full-back John is admirable, even if it may not chime with some of their more optimistic, or hubristic, supporters.

In fairness, after the home defeat to Hamilton Accies last weekend, the vast majority of the Rangers support will be under no illusions of exactly where their team’s ambitions should lie this term, and if they are to at least establish themselves as the best of the rest, then Wednesday’s game at Ibrox followed by the visit to Pittodrie on Saturday will go a long way to determine if they are able to do that.

“They are second in the league and doing well, they are playing well,” said John. “It would be good for us to make a statement against them next week.

“We’re playing them Wednesday-Saturday so we’ve got two big games against them back to back.

“We’re looking forward to these two games against a big team, we do need to put down a marker against them.”

It is no shock to John to see Aberdeen again making a fist of things at the top end of the table given that he has inside knowledge of a couple of their players, and in particular, their impressive goalkeeper Joe Lewis from their days together at Cardiff City.

“I know Joe Lewis quite well, I played with him at Cardiff for a year or so,” he said.

“It’s no surprise he’s done terrific for Aberdeen because at Cardiff he was unlucky. From his point of view, he wasn’t really getting his chance. We did have a good few goalkeepers there during his time, including David Marshall.

“It’s always the problem with goalkeepers, if one is doing well then that’s you out the team. David Marshall had his amazing league performances in the Premier League when we were up there so it’s hard for players to get into the team when someone like that is doing so well.

“Nicky [Maynard] was there too. He showed his talent at Cardiff, scored goals every season he played. He’s another good player. I don’t see really why he’s not getting his chance.”

From a purely Rangers perspective, John isn’t too concerned by the ongoing delay in appointing a new permanent manager since the departure of Pedro Caixinha exactly a month ago. Interim boss Graeme Murty seemed to be steadying the listing Rangers ship, but the defeat to Hamilton saw the club back in choppy waters, and Aberdeen boss Derek McInnes moving to rule himself out of long-speculated move to Rangers prior to the clashes between the sides will hardly have eased the feeling of tumult around Ibrox.

But John said: “We can block out all the speculation. I think Graeme Murty has done well since he’s come in.

“It is part and parcel now of the game that managers come and go at clubs, but I played under about six or seven managers in the space of four years at Cardiff. It happened again here now with the gaffer leaving. Graeme has done a good job so far. But I think the boys just get on with it.

“Obviously, we had two good results, then the Hamilton one wasn’t great. But I think the boys could’ve won that game in the first 20 minutes with three or four chances to score and if they had then the game would’ve turned out differently.”

John’s personal progress at the club was stymied somewhat by a bug that kept him out of the Hamilton match, but with captain Lee Wallace still not ready for top team action despite a return to training after injury, he returned at left-back for Friday night’s game in Dundee.

It wasn’t always a role that came naturally to him, and in fact, it was current SFA performance director Malky Mackay who saw that he may be able to do a job there.

“To be honest, it really depends on what team I am playing for,” he said. “Here at Rangers, where we do like to keep the ball and play out, when I am playing left back I can easily get forward and I’ve got a lot of space to do that. When I have been able to do that, I’ve shown what I can do.

“I started out as a winger. Malky Mackay switched me back one day when one of the players at the start of the Premier League got injured, and the manager said he literally had no one else he could put there at that time.

“I went in to play that game, did well and stayed there ever since. It was scary. Very scary. Making your first team debut in the Premier League at West Ham’s stadium where the atmosphere was amazing for me.

“I was up against Joe Cole that day, if I remember. It took me about 20 minutes to get into it. After that, I felt it was actually fine, although we lost 2-0.”

22-year-old John holds ambitions of adding to the two caps he has already earned for Wales early on in his career, and lining up again alongside superstars like Gareth Bale for his country. And he might just do that if he can do a reverse-Bale, as such, and establish himself as their first-choice left-back after starting out as an attacker.

“Gareth was playing left-back and everyone could see that wasn’t his proper position,” said John. “As soon as he got moved up he turned into a totally different player, doing so well for Spurs and now playing for the one of the biggest in the world.

‘Maybe I could go the other way, establish myself as a left back.”

Both of John’s caps so far came under former Wales manager Chris Coleman, who before taking up the Sunderland job, had been linked with a move to Rangers. And it’s no surprise to John the calibre of candidate being mentioned.

“With a big club like Rangers, you are having to look for a big name in a manager,” he said.