Rangers are inching towards winning the Irn-Bru Third Division title by a large margin.

This will never feel like a conventional season to a club that is used to measuring its worth in terms of elite trophies won, but the progress towards this championship has become perplexing. For the second successive home game, the Ibrox fans booed their team from the field and the crowds are noticeably smaller than earlier in the season. Yet Rangers are on the cusp of success.

The circumstances of this season are still being borne. The best that Ally McCoist and his players could say about Saturday's draw with Stirling Albion was that it counted as another point towards the title. The visitors celebrated afterwards as if it was worth more to them, but they have now taken five points from four meetings with Rangers this season and will feel entitled to their air of satisfaction.

Rangers need only four points to secure the title, although it could be won away to Montrose on Saturday if Queen's Park drop any points. There was no triumphalism at the weekend, though, and the home fans unfurled a banner towards the end of the game that read: Less Time Tweeting, More Time Training. It was in reference to a Kyle Hutton tweet days after the loss to Annan Athletic at Ibrox two weeks ago in which the midfielder said, at midday, that training was over and he was heading home to watch a DVD.

The response from some Rangers fans was disproportionate, not least because the player's downtime was being spent in an easy, relaxed manner, rather than in non-professional pursuits like drinking and gambling the way earlier generations of British footballers did. Even so, it has become a reflection of the mood among fans that the team is underperforming.

"We're much better than that, we've proved that, so we have to go in and train hard and hopefully get a result up at Montrose," said Fraser Aird, the young winger. "It's nothing to do with confidence, it was just a bad performance.

"None of us have been there before, so some of the younger boys are going to need pushed over the line. The Rangers fans are the best at times but they want to see the boys perform and that's what Rangers are all about – playing for the jersey and competing for places and it's hard to please the fans."

McCoist has spoken to his younger players about the demands and expectations that come with being a Rangers player, but also the scrutiny that is part of a sometimes claustrophobic life in Glasgow. Lessons are being learned and even if some players' form has diminished recently, there will be a fillip when the title is won.

These weeks must be galling for McCoist because the team is so far from the ambition and the vision that he has for it. The summer will bring change, which will, in turn, restore a mood of optimism among the players. Yet others will know that they are unlikely to remain at the club beyond this season and that, coupled with the lack of competition in the title race, might explain the slump in form.

Against Stirling, Kane Hemmings ought to have scored three times but missed with a header, a shot and an instinctive stab at the ball. Lee Wallace also spurned a good opportunity, but the visitors were also left to rue a header from Jordan White which was cleared off the line by Aird and Scott Davidson's miscued volley from a good position inside the area. Stirling grew more composed as the game progressed and they took advantage of a slow, overly-deliberate pace to Rangers' play.

"The boys try their best at training every day," said Aird. "We get one day off a week, so it's nothing to do with that. It's about performing better on a matchday. We usually look over the tape on a Monday and see what we did right and what we did wrong.

"Fans expect the best team to go out there and win every week and we were poor on Saturday. It's our job to prove why we're at Rangers."