The defender was speaking to the press on the eve of Rangers' Champions League qualifying opener against Union Saint-Gilloise.

How big of a lure was the Champions League in choosing to stay at Rangers?

It is a box I’d love to tick. It’s the pinnacle of football and where every players wants to play. But at the same time I don’t think that was a decision in signing my contract, Champions League football has been part of the agenda for the last few years. Last year, we weren’t able to make it. Hopefully this year we can and over the next few years me and this football club can play Champions League football.

The run that you had to the Europa League final, and the experiences you’ve had in Europe, that must give you a lot of confidence going into this qualification stage?

With the new manager, from November onwards, we set up perfectly in Europe. Tactically, the manager is very good. We change depending on the opposition, and even within games. That will stand us in good stead. We’ve had a good pre-season. First game of the season, Livingston away, we got a win. It wasn’t our greatest performance, but it was always going to be hard going there. We’re in a good place and hopefully last year stands us in good stead.

How do you feel John Souttar is settling into the club?

He’s settled in really well. I’ve been really, really impressed by him. From the first week he trained, you could see his qualities. I seen a few things on the internet after Saturday, people talking badly about him because he’s had one game where he’s made a few mistakes. We’ve been there. I’ve been written off plenty of times by Rangers fans. I see him every single day and I have no doubt that he’ll be an unbelievable signing for this club.

Rangers Review:

Just touching on that previous question, making your debut at a club like Rangers is always going to be challenging, is it a case of just having trust in yourself?

100 percent. He’s an international player, 25-years-old and he’s played however many games in Scottish football. We know what we’ve signed. We all know the pressure that comes with joining Rangers. You can’t judge people off one game. Livingston away is not an easy place to go with the pitch and the way they play. I’ve been more impressed seeing him in training. I knew he was a good player playing against Hearts, but everything he does is so crisp with the ball. He throws himself infront of everything and I’m so excited to play with him.

We saw last season in Europe, how aggressive yourself and Calvin (Bassey) were. With potentially three new central defensive partnerships, is that something you and the team have settled on in Europe?

That’s the way we want to play, especially at home. When you have 50,000 fans behind you at home they don’t want to see you sitting off and letting other teams have the ball. We’ve done that in every game under the manager at home – against Dortmund and Leipzig. We want to be aggressive, winning the ball back and getting into as many duels as possible. There’s a few new centre-half partners that I’ll need to get used to again, but they all know they’re coming in to play the Rangers way and I’m sure they’ll get used to it very fast.

The manager is trying to get Alfredo Morelos and Ryan Kent to sign new contracts, if both of those happen, will this be the strongest Rangers side that you’ll have been involved with?

They’re both still Rangers players now so this is probably the strongest I’ve been involved with at Rangers. The contract situation is up to them, I’m never going to sit here and tell them what to do. I had my own contract situation last year and my teammates and staff respected my privacy. They’re both Rangers players at the present moment. The players that we’ve brought in, the squad that we have, when we play 11v11 in training it’s by far the best squad of players since I’ve been at this football club.