Rangers captain Steven Davis has admitted the club's financial turmoil has affected the players.
Skipper believes Old Firm win is perfect response
Rangers captain Steven Davis has admitted the club's financial turmoil has affected the players.
Ally McCoist's men have lost three out of four matches since it was announced the Scottish champions would be going into administration last month.
Even with a 10-point deduction because of their financial status, Northern Ireland international Davis believes there is no better time to get Ibrox cheering again than a positive result against league leaders Celtic in Sunday's Old Firm derby clash.
"There's no doubt everything which has been happening off the pitch has affected us mentally on it," Davis told the club's
official website.
"You've maybe seen that at times but we just need to try to get back to winning ways and this is a good game for us to try to do that in.
Rivals
"There is going to be a good atmosphere at Ibrox and the match is an opportunity for us to beat our nearest rivals so we'll be giving it our all to get a good result.
"There's such a fine line in these fixtures but we know we can beat Celtic. We'll be at home and we'll be doing our best to come out on top."
Davis, who took over the skipper's armband when David Weir left the club in January, has had the most testing of times in his new captain's role which has included players being stripped of up to three-quarters of their wages in a bid to prevent redundancies among the squad and the club's workforce.
"Everything just seemed to go wrong for the club after David Weir left and I replaced him as captain so I'm not sure what that says," the 27-year-old said.
"It has been a real learning experience and I've obviously felt the responsibility as captain to try to guide some of the younger players through it all.
Difficult period
"The senior boys have been a big help in terms of the negotiating we've had to do with the administrators but it has been a difficult period.
"When we look back on it, hopefully there are positives we can draw from the experience because there's a real togetherness in our squad.
"At the moment we're just focused on getting the right results and hopefully this weekend we can put a smile on the fans' faces again because they have been great to us."
