WALTER SMITH says Rangers should be going for Derek McInnes for manager.

Aberdeen chairman Stewart Milne said on Thursday any approach for the Pittodrie boss would be rejected.

However, the man who delivered nine-in-a-row was back at Ibrox yesterday and reckons McInnes’s record with the Dons should still make him a target.

“I’d like someone that was going to bring a level of success to the club,” said Smith. “I would like to see Derek take the opportunity to do that. I had him as a player, and as a manager he has done a good job wherever he is.

“He went to Bristol and had some problems, but has come back to Aberdeen, four years there, and brought stability to the club.

“He’s adapted to what he’s got and I don’t think Rangers would go far wrong in attempting to get Derek.”

McInnes has been in charge at Pittodrie for four years and in 2014 won the League Cup, the club’s first major trophy in 19 years.

In 2015 and 2016 he also secured back-to-back second place finishes in the Scottish Premiership.

Rangers attention though is firmly on a man Smith admitted he does not know a “great deal” about – Pedro Caixinha.

Currently employed by Qatari side Al-Gharafa SC, the Portuguese has been targeted as replacement for Mark Warburton.

Smith, for his part, preferred to focus on the challenges facing interim manager Graeme Murty.

He said: “I think it was surprising Mark Warburton left when he did.

“It’s left everyone in a really awkward circumstance, more so Graeme than anyone else.

“He has got a very difficult job to do.

“Everybody has to appreciate it’s the first year back in the Premiership.

“I think they’re finding it a bit more difficult than they thought they would.

“It’s a year where everyone is going to have to make an assessment of where the club are and what they have to do to go forward.

“I wasn’t particularly surprised Rangers ended up in second or third position in the league.

“What I was a wee bit surprised about is the number of points they are away from Celtic, but that’s a credit to Celtic and the way they’ve handled the season.”

And in particular, he said to the manager they have brought in to lead them.

“Brendan Rodgers has had a brilliant start,” acknowledged Smith.

“But Rangers find themselves 33 points behind Celtic which is obviously an unacceptable circumstance.”

Talks aimed at recruiting Ross Wilson as the new director of football meanwhile continue.

The Southampton head of scouting and recruitment has asked for more time before delivering his definitive answer on their offer.

Murty admits he wasn’t a ‘Rangers man’.. until now

GRAEME MURTY was not ‘a Rangers man’ when he arrived at Ibrox.

He is now.

That’s what being thrust behind the wheel of the Gers juggernaut does to a person.

The speed and intensity of his conversion from non-believer to Bluenose has taken the intelligent 42-year-old by surprise.

As he prepares to hand over control of the first team, the interim head coach reassured fans that the next man in charge will rapidly find himself reborn as a Ranger.

“Whoever comes into this post has to understand that this place is going to be an eye-opener,” said Murty.

“In very short order, he’ll get a strong grounding in what Rangers is all about.

“It’s not just at Ibrox or the training ground. It’s everything around the football club and the level of scrutiny from around the world that Rangers attracts.

“So we have to make sure that person has the amount of support that I’ve had to cope with that – and focus on the football club.”

Murty led the Gers to the first win of his short reign against St Johnstone in midweek.

After back-to-back Premiership defeats, his relief was clear to see.

But he insists the pressure that comes packaged with a contract of employment at Ibrox is something he sought out.

“This club engenders passion in people because you recognise the scale and the stature of the club,” he said.

“It has gripped me in the short time I’ve been here. It can be all consuming.

“But you have to realise and respect the history of the place, the mentality of the following and make sure that you put out a team that performs in keeping with the status of the club.

“It’s what I wanted when I came here. I wanted to experience what it means to be at a club of this stature and a club that has a level of expectation upon it.

“For my personal growth as a coach, the reason I came here was to see – although not at this early stage – what it meant to actually be in charge of a team that was expected to win every week.

“When I come out of this experience, whenever it ends, I will be a far, far better practitioner at whatever level I choose to go to.”

In the short term, that level looks likely to be back with the Gers’ Under-20s.

But coaching the first team, even for a short time, has given him a new perspective.

As a result, he is in no doubt what Rangers’ long-term goal should be.

Murty said: “The manager’s job here is a fantastic role for whoever is lucky enough to get it.

“If you project this club to where we want it to be, we should be pushing and pushing – at the minute to chase Celtic.

“But the aim can’t just be to catch them, it should be to surpass them.”