Former Rangers captain Barry Ferguson has questioned whether Philippe Clement's squad have the mentality to bounce back from their disappointing start to the 2024/25 season. 

Rangers are now nine points behind Aberdeen and Celtic in the Scottish Premiership title race and have a potentially tenure-defining match against Motherwell next up as they look to defend their Premier Sports Cup trophy. 

Current skipper James Tavernier insisted that the entire Rangers playing staff remain behind their manager when he spoke to the media ahead of the semi-final clash at Hampden Park. However, Ferguson is unsure the team has enough strong personalities that are willing to strive for better standards and help get the Light Blues firing on all cylinders again.

Speaking on Friday night's edition of the Go Radio Football Show, the ex-Rangers midfielder said: "I understand that the manager is at the head of it and the buck stops with him. But at the end of the day, I need to see more from the players that go out on the pitch as well. 

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"I think there's good players, but I do think they lack big personalities and characters. I think that is certainly needed in the Rangers team. They need two or three leaders, guys who are going to not accept if something is not going right on the pitch. I'm expecting somebody to say something, not just one player but two or three players.

"I feel at this moment in time Rangers are lacking that type of characters in the team." 

Ferguson's old teammate Kris Boyd is among the Rangers dissenters, who has publicly called for Clement to be sacked by the Ibrox board. 

However, the former Scotland internationalist still believes he's seen enough positives to suggest that the club shouldn't force a change at the held quite yet.

"That's the frustrating thing," Ferguson stressed. "I've been to 90 per cent of the games this season and some of the performances have shown there's progress there and then it will go off of it. And when you play at a club like Rangers you have to have consistency. 

"I keep going back to Wednesday, I know the first 20, 25 minutes of the second half was a lot better, but we had to see that in the first minute. That has to start from the start of the game because you know what you're going into. It's hostile, there's no surprises, you know the way Jimmy Thelin, you know the type of players they've got. They try and ruffle you up, they get in your faces, and I just don't think Rangers could handle that."