The team that plays video games together wins together. It is not quite as catchy as the famous line about previous Rangers sides that enjoyed a night out and a series of silverware successes but the theory behind it is the same.

The journey from Glasgow to Dundee, via an overnight in St Andrews, proved to be a futile one for Philippe Clement’s side once again this week. For the second time in a matter of weeks, they returned home with no points secured and not even a ball kicked. Both occasions have been farcical situations that have shamed Dundee and Scottish football. Rangers have been left at a sporting disadvantage and their supporters have been left out of pocket.

In the middle of it all, the players have been innocent bystanders. You can empathise with their frustration but, as John Souttar points out, you shouldn’t really feel sorry for them. A night in a five-star hotel in St Andrews is, after all, not exactly a hardship. Yet it could prove to be a useful endeavour for Rangers as the camaraderie that Clement has worked so hard to instil was nurtured during their time away.

“It’s not like we were going up there and staying in a prison,” Souttar said. “We were in a very nice hotel so I’m not going to complain about going up there and spending a day with the boys.

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“We’re a close-knit group so it’s not like we went up there and spend the time on our own with everyone raging with the game being called off. We’re all close so we went up there and had a good time. It’s a way of bonding as well.

“We wouldn’t have worked on the Ross County game until Thursday anyway. We could sit here and be negative about everything but I prefer to be positive and focus on that.

“Everyone does different things on away trips. A few of us go for coffees, a few play cards, others will be on the PlayStation. It’s good. When you go away to hotels all the staff and all the boys are together. 

“It brings everyone together. And to win things I think that’s important. That’s something we can take away from the stay out there.

“The manager is big on that. We have great staff here. Everyone is close so trips like that are never wasted.

“It’s far from ideal what happened and how it was. But I don’t think too many boys were raging. It is what it is, and we just had to deal with it.”

Souttar is sadly well versed in the frustrations and disappointments that are part of life as a professional. This season has brought many good times for the defender but he knows all too well what the other side of the coin looks and feels like having endured several different spells out of action over recent years.

The coming weeks could be the most defining ones of his career as Rangers target a treble and he looks to earn a place in the Scotland squad for the European Championship. Souttar has a sense of perspective that will stand him in good stead.

“I think you need to keep your feet on the ground,” Souttar said. “Like anything in life, if you look too far ahead you can get distracted and that can take you away from being in the now. For me, it’s about focusing on the next day and the next game and not looking too far into the future.

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“I just want to do everything I can every day and the rest will take care of itself. I think I’ve always been like that. But probably being through the injuries I’ve been through has made me take every day one at a time. I also don’t take any day for granted in football because you never know what’s around the corner.

“If you overthink things and try and calculate things in your head it becomes distracting. As soon as the manager came in, he was talking to us about forgetting everything else. He wanted us to focus on every session and every game.

“He said: ‘If you do that then we’ll be in a good position,’ and now we’re in a far better position than we were before he came in. So there is no reason for us to change now.”