If there was one element amid the deserved platitudes around Rangers’ relentless march to 55 that was slightly unheralded it was the team's ability to adapt, improvise and overcome.

While Celtic were the quintessential hot mess - Covid intrigue, bizarre trips abroad, wacky press conferences and fan tumult unravelling a talented squad - at Ibrox there was a singularity of focus. A no-excuses mantra permeated the dressing room and their ‘Last Dance’ soon became a victory procession.

No matter what dropped from the sky in that season of all seasons, Rangers, as befitting the club motto, were always ready.

Covid issues were dealt with quickly and crucially, while the fans were missed, the phantom Ibrox roar wasn’t allowed to become a justification for shortcomings elsewhere.

And so, Rangers won every single game on home turf despite absent friends. A remarkable feat given the world-renown the stadium holds as an inspirational force.

This unyielding achievement doesn’t point, as some have suggested, to a softness of character with players more comfortable in a cosy, academy-lite environment. Quite the opposite. As a professional, you shouldn’t have to rely on external stimuli to get you in the right frame of mind to do your job and Rangers’ players passed this test with easily.

READ MORE: Nostalgic reappearance of Rangers' lockdown past points to Giovanni van Bronckhorst's profitable future

As we regress into another more regulated stage of Covid with the new Omicron variant squeezing the nation with a vice-like intensity, we are faced with another lockout of football fans.

It began yesterday in Govan with just 500 souls in attendance, effectively eradicating home advantage. And yet, Rangers continued on with a minimum of fuss, dispatching St Mirren with an ease that should have seen a larger margin of victory.

It was effortless. It was calm. It was a display brimming with self-confidence. If Rangers are already taking on Giovanni van Bronckhorst’s playing principles, they are also starting to reflect his personality out on the grass.

And despite the SPFL fantasy that fans could be back in big numbers by mid-January, a notion with no basis in anything other than wish-fulfilment, clubs will have to get used to ethereal stadiums for a while yet - the scientific suggestion is this current tsunami won’t likely hit its peak until early February.

And if crowds are to be heavily reduced for a longer period than we all hope, Rangers have already hopped back on that bike without fuss, the switch in gears barely perceptible.

Meanwhile, across the city the club’s biggest rival was back raging against the machine.

After Celtic’s 3-1 win over St Johnstone, Ange Postecoglou said: “Did I enjoy the game? No. I had a season of it in Japan and I just don't think it is the same game. We all need to realise that it is the supporters who make the game and they are the ones who create the atmosphere and who make those special moments. I don't think any player or manager would enjoy playing in an atmosphere like this.”

Postecoglou has done much to improve on Celtic’s woeful performance of last season but it was surprising to see such a steady media operator deliver comments that could be latched upon as a ready-made excuse for his players in the matches ahead.

The psychology of relentlessness is crucial to a title race and putting a negative barrier around matches without supporters seems a left-field choice given the reality of the pandemic situation across the country.

READ MORE: Pablo Torre scouted: Should Rangers target transfer of technical 'ball-attracted conductor'?

Of course, the Australian is right to point out that football isn’t the same without big numbers of supporters, that’s self-evident. But the notion that players can’t enjoy a game of football because of a lack of crowds will be unlikely to have his men bouncing to the next game sans fans. They might even feel, already softened up by previous similar messages from the club, that dropping future points is symptomatic of cruel fates conspiring against them rather than their own shortcomings.

It’s rhetoric you’d be surprised to see come out of Ibrox.

The players’ previous experiences will leave them full of confidence, where their rivals can only call on doubts. Scottish football without fans has been, so far, synonymous with an almost indestructible Rangers, relentlessly hunting down victory after victory and making their quality pay.

You wouldn’t bet against that stopping any time soon.