Rangers boss Pedro Caixinha refuses to look beyond Partick Thistle clash

RANGERS manager Pedro Caixinha is not looking beyond a trip to Maryhill at the start of what could be a defining week for his tenure.

Caixinha has entered the second six months of his reign but Partick Thistle denied him his first hat-trick of victories on Friday night after holding his side to a 2-2 draw.

Thistle now stand in the way of Rangers in their quest to reach the Betfred Cup semi-finals and Tuesday’s game is quickly followed by another Glasgow derby against Celtic on Saturday.

Caixinha has suffered defeat in both of his meetings with Celtic and the pressure is on him to at least reduce the gap between the teams after his side were beaten 5-1 at Ibrox in their most recent encounter.

But the Portuguese coach brushed off scrutiny on his own job ahead of his second trip to the Energy Check Stadium at Firhill in five days.

“I don’t care about that situation, I just focus on my work,” he said. “If I focused on that I might be near the TV or reading the newspapers all the time.

“When I first came, Steve on the reception came to me with a huge amount of newspapers on the first day. And I just asked him: ‘Why this?’ All the managers asked for it.

“I came here to work, I didn’t come here to read newspapers. I don’t watch TV, so I don’t care about it.

“I’m here to do my job and I am focused on my job, and my job is about winning.

“If I don’t win I will be judged by that. Okay, it’s part of the job, but I am not thinking about it.”

Two victories this week could kick-start Caixinha’s reign but he insists the Thistle match is too important to look past.

He said: “First we need one, and the one is like I said before the Dunfermline game, that it was the most important game of the season. You know why? Because it’s a knockout game.

“So we need to win because in November we want to be at Hampden. That’s the reality. This is a competition that only four games allow you to take a trophy.

“And we are a long time at this club, by all the circumstances that everybody knows, waiting for titles.

“So we cannot refuse this chance to do everything to get into the semi-final, and after that thinking about being in the final.”