DARREN McGREGOR has dispelled the notion that the Rangers players are oblivious or impervious to the chaotic events which seem to unfold at Ibrox on a daily basis.

The 29-year-old defender is a strong character having endured the wilds of Junior football and overcome two serious knee injuries but he openly admits that he is affected by off-field corporate fighting and continual financial crises.

However, it has been more close to home in the past month. The turmoil is now in the dressing room following the resignations of Ally McCoist and Kenny McDowall with the former on gardening leave and latter in limbo, it would seem.

McGregor is certainly sad to see the back of McCoist, the man who brought him from St Mirren last summer and he insists that the players are coping with McDowall's bombshell but with some difficulties.

McGregor said: "I'd be lying if I said that sometimes it doesn't swirl around in the back of your head, of course it does because it's human nature, but you try and block it out as much as you can and you get on with your job.

"We could sit here and say 'the gaffer's gone and now Kenny might be going, the off-field antics' you could write a big massive list, but at the end of the day what's the point?

"We're getting paid to play football and paid to win matches so that's what we need to concentrate on.

"The gaffer is definitely not forgotten. I just wish I'd had more time to spend with him. As a character and a manager I thought he was great.

"I really did like him. It was a shame as far as that went. But football is like that - you'll build relationships up, they move on then it's hard to keep that relationship. That's just football I suppose.

"Obviously, it was a bit of a body blow when Kenny told us he was resigning, but you just deal with it.

"He came in on Tuesday and we had a wee discussion about it and cleared the air and that's it, you move on.

"I totally respect how he is feeling, but we still have a job to do and I'm sure he'll be no different, when he crosses the line in training he will still be the Kenny we know.

"In any walk of life you get ups and downs and football is no different. In football it's maybe intensified a bit. Over the past year or so here it's maybe intensified too because of what has gone on here on the park and off the park.

"For me I just concentrate on the objective which is to win on a Saturday and everything else you just put the blinkers on."

McGregor returns to Central Park today where he spent two spells as a player knowing that Rangers must win to maintain their seemingly faint challenge to Hearts and try to gain some momentum for next Sunday's League Cup semi-final against Celtic.

He said: "I'm pretty sure with the group of boys we have in that dressing room, we won't take our foot of the pedal.

"If anything we'll be pressing harder on the pedal just to try and prove a point knowing that other people have been thinking we'll falter, we just need to battle against that. It might make it a wee bit more difficult.

"But coming to a club like Rangers, it's difficult at the best of times, so you just roll with it and get on with it.

"Obviously it's not the best build-up to the Celtic game but we can only control what's in our spectrum, so training, turning up and applying yourself in training and in games.

"Everything else we need to block it out like a professional which we are. You need to block out the negativity. You can probably use it for motivation or just totally ignore it and I tend to do that.

"The Celtic game is still one game away so it would be arrogant of me to say I'm looking forward to playing in it in a sense I'll be playing. Nothing has been confirmed yet.

"Cowdenbeath will be massive. It's a difficult place to go with a small pitch and they'll raise their standards.

"If we're up to full speed we'll beat them, if we're not we'll be in trouble."