Rangers appear to be ready to call on Colin Hendry to solve the defensive frailties that brought them their second successive league defeat when they travelled to Perth to meet St Johnstone last Sunday.

Tomorrow, they face the McDiarmid Park team again in the Scottish Cup semi-final at Celtic Park and Hendry, who played for an hour in a reserve game at Dundee in midweek, is ready to return. So, too, is French World Cup winner Stephane Guivarc'h, another player who came through that reserve game on Tayside and who has been absent recently because of injury.

Hendry, however, may be the most important change that Advocaat could make, particularly in view of the fact that Australian Craig Moore, who has just returned to the club from Crystal Palace, is expected to be out for at least six weeks after damaging knee ligaments in a collision with a team-mate in training.

The coach complained after the televised defeat from St Johnstone that his defenders had been 'too nice' during the game and he reiterated that yesterday as he insisted that Saints had shown more committement in defence than his own players, citing the chances taken by Tony Vidmar and Craig Moore before Rangers scored their solitary goal.

Advocaat said: ''The St Johnstone defenders were challenging all the time and our two players had to face challenges before we got our goal. They were doing the right things and sometimes we were not.''

The coach believes, however, his players have learned their lesson and will face St Johnstone with the aggression they require to reach the cup final. He is clearly happy he has Hendry available, as well as Guivarc'h, and he believes his players have talked their way through the happenings of last weekend and found a way of improving their performance.

Advocaat insists he has been 'quiet' with them since last week, but his pride was hurt and he admitted: ''Two defeats in succession is not something which happens often at this club. Nor is it something which has happened often to me.

''However, we know what is expected. We do not want players talking about what they are going to do - we want them to go out onto the field and perform there. That is what I believe will happen.''

The Duchman alluded to the criticism he had suffered obliquely at the hands of Sandy Clark during the week and expressed surprise at the comments.

He claimed: ''I gave St Johnstone credit for what they did, but I still believe we played the better football and that's all I was trying to say. I think Paul Kane agreed with me today when he spoke to the newspapers.''

Advocaat does not believe the pressure in chasing a 'treble' is worrying his players. He says: ''The same players have gone through the season knowing that they are expected to win the championship and the same players were able to win against Leverkusen, so why should they not win now? But we have to coincentrate on what is happening on the field and nothing else.

''Mind games happen in football, but that kind of thing does not concern me.''

The problem that must be worrying Advocaat, though, is whether his players have the character to withstand the pressures now being heaped upon them. He believes they do and he had German goalkeeper Stefan Klos supporting him at Ibrox yesterday.

Klos, too, seemed bewildered at how suddenly things have gone wrong for the Ibrox team. Until the Dundee United defeat, he had not been on a losing side since his arrival from Borussia Dortmund. Now he has had to accept two back-to-back defeats that have dented the championship challenge and may yet cause severe psychological damage in the closing weeks of the season.

Klos has his own way of dealing with this kind of thing - he simply puts the disappointments behind him and moves on to the next challenge.

He says: ''It is never easy to accept two defeats in successive games, especially in the championship but we cannot look back too much. We have to talk about what went wrong, of course, but, that apart, our focus has to be on the next game.

''This time we have to play St Johnstone again. We all know that will be difficult because they proved against us in the last game that they are a good team, but all of our players, want to be in the cup final. That would be very important for us. Then, after we have dealt with the cup, we can start to think about the league once more.

''Again, we know that it is not going to be easy for us to win the championship. Celtic want to win it too, but I don't think that the defeats will affect us too much as far as confidence goes.

''We are all experienced players and we know what we must do and I think that everyone is used to pressure. We are not thinking about having another defeat but only about wining the game and reaching the final. That is the main thing in all our thoughts.''

Tomorrow will determine whether or not this Rangers' team will buckle under the pressure of the end-of-season demands or not. If they lose, then, of course, the 'Treble' dream dies, but a third defeat could also end their championship aspirations and Advocaat will be acutely aware of that.