Everything manager Michael Beale told Rangers TV when speaking to the club's media channel on Tuesday afternoon.

The international break has allowed you and your players to draw a breath for the first time since you were appointed as manager. How have you utilised this break?

I’ve been a dad for a week or so, which has been nice. There has been a bit of time at home. It has been a fantastic period for me on a personal level. Coming back into the club has been a whirlwind, all the way through until now. I think the team has performed well. They have taken on a lot of information. We have trained really hard, we have played 19 games and travelled up and down the country so it was important that I gave the players a chance to take a breath. It was important that I allowed them to reintroduce themselves to their families and I was pretty much the same over the weekend. We are really looking forward to getting back in and back to work now.

Have you been able to reflect on the progress that has been made so far and the progress that’s still to be made?

Yeah, of course, naturally. I have been delighted with the majority of the games. To win 17 out of 19 and only lose one – albeit a disappointing one – has shown the progress and has shown that the players have taken on board the ideas. These are the type of winning runs we need to go on consistently now moving forward. And obviously it is a chance for me to look again towards the recruitment and one eye towards the future and what we might need. Confidence comes from winning games of football, from training well and enjoying your environment – enabling people to be themselves and be really comfortable in the environment. The level in training has gone up in the last few weeks when we have had more players fit and able to train consistently – something that wasn’t available to us when I first came into the club. So there are a lot of things that are positive. The environment here, for us as staff and the players, it’s fantastic what the club provides for us. It removes all the excuses really. The pitches are good, the food is good, even the recovery – the way we travel, the places we stay. What you try to do for these young men is to remove the excuses to enable them to perform. And I think as a club we do provide that.

One of the big stamps on your time in charge so far is the business you did in the January window. You must be delighted with how Todd [Cantwell] and Nico [Raskin] are settling in.

Listen, I think both Nico and Todd have come in and we have enabled them to be themselves in our environment. I think that anyone that feels themselves and feels happy and comfortable in an environment and in the team, will always perform to their level. They are two very good players. There are big challenges ahead – to go into Europe and to win games there as well – so they have certainly not passed every test right now. They have come in and brought a freshness to the team, played with a smile on their face and shown their quality. I think they have added to the team and we will look to add more players as we move forward for sure.

On the international front, Fashion [Sakala] continued his fine form with a goal for Zambia and Ryan Jack started for Scotland against Cyprus.

Yeah. So Fashion, it was a very good goal actually and his nation had two wins. Ryan Jack played very well in a good win for Scotland. They have obviously got a game to come against Spain. Glen Kamara made his 50th appearance for Finland, winning against Northern Ireland, which is a nice milestone for him. Young Adam [Devine] was away with the Under-21s and Borna [Barisic] was with Croatia as well. Those boys have been away, which is always a proud moment for them on a personal level and again, it showcases Rangers.

Allan McGregor, if selected, will make his 500th appearance for the club on Saturday against Dundee United and would be the first player to do so since Ally McCoist. Give us your experience of Allan since you have been at the club.

Allan re-joined the club when I joined the club for the first time in the summer of 2018. I hadn’t worked with him before but quickly I saw how fantastic he is day in, day out in terms of his work ethic, training and rituals. He is a man who sticks to his rituals and works away. If we are a minute late getting to the stadium then he gets really annoyed because he is really thorough in his preparation, his recovery and his training. That has enabled him to have a wonderful career. To achieve 500 games for Rangers is a very special achievement. Very few have done it in the past, certainly to the age that Allan has played and the achievements that he has had for the club. In the time I have worked with him here he is probably on the best part of 200, nearly 250 games. He has been outstanding. Some of the saves that he has made… there are too many to mention. Every season he has earned us points, he has won us games and got us through to the next round in cup competitions. When you look at him day in, day out it’s no secret – hard work, preparation, dedication to your craft and always intrigued and open-eyed in terms of learning and wanting to get better. This is a man in his forties who trains every day like he is a teenager and he is watching and learning all the time. He is very self-reflective, self-critical if you like. He is willing to take feedback on and he just wants to win and get better. If that can’t rub off on you as a young player – and to be honest, everyone in the squad is younger than him – then you’re not opening your eyes to bettering yourself. I think Allan is a cornerstone to everything that’s been good about this club since I came in 2018 and I think he can be hugely proud. He is not finished yet – it will be 500-and-something. It won’t be 500, it won’t end there. But I think the service that he has given this football club, as a young boy coming through our academy, is absolutely outstanding.

United on Saturday and a bit more of a solid look about them under Jim Goodwin. What sort of challenge are they going to pose you?

Well, you are playing a coach for the third time of your spell here. We played Aberdeen and they were two quite close games where we got the victories. They are fighting for their lives down the bottom of the league and they will come to Ibrox and make things tough, like most teams do. They will come to Ibrox and try to reduce the space on the pitch. It is very important to us that we are very sharp in the final third and we are making the most of opportunities and scoring goals. We have been scoring goals of late but it’s probably fair to say that in every single game we could have scored more. So for me, the most important thing is that we are creating chances and scoring. I would like us still to be a little bit more ruthless because I think if you look back to the Motherwell game, we should have scored more goals. In the Raith game, we should have scored more goals. In the game away at Hibs, we should have scored more goals. Now, there are good times where we are scoring three or four but I want us to be more ruthless.