STEVEN GERRARD praised a 'faultless' showing from Joe Aribo as he showed his character and class to fill-in at left-back and help Rangers overcome Livingston.
The midfielder was asked to drop back into the unfamiliar position after Gerrard was left without the services of Borna Barisic and Calvin Bassey through injury and suspension respectively.
Aribo didn't put a foot wrong at the Tony Macaroni Arena as Rangers earned a 3-0 victory to move to the brink of an unbeaten Premiership campaign and a place in the Ibrox history books this term.
Rangers can now set new defensive and clean sheet records against Aberdeen on Saturday and Gerrard was pleased with another resolute showing as the Lions were comfortably beaten.
Gerrard said: “I thought he was faultless. We asked him to be solid, we asked him to win headers and tackles, we asked him to compete and get forward and play.
READ MORE: Steven Gerrard in Walter Smith celebration vow ahead of Ibrox trophy day
"Good players can’t play anywhere all over the pitch – only top players can do that and Joe Aribo can play anywhere.
“All you need to say to him is: ‘I need a favour from you, I need a turn’ and he gave me that in abundance.
"He doesn’t have an ego but he was outstanding – he can do anything on a football pitch. He’s top.
“The challenge for me and us as a staff - certainly from March 7 and even more so after the St Johnstone setback - was could we keep the standards high in terms of our organisation and drive the players forward to keep clean sheets.
READ MORE: Steven Gerrard's 'it never stops' message as he strives for more Rangers success
“We’ve been successful in the league on clean sheets and our organisation, so the challenge was keeping the boys hungry and motivated.
“There is one more challenge left for them to do but the signs from tonight and leading into this game is that they are ready for Aberdeen."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here