RINO GATTUSO ponders the question a moment before replying, an impish grin spreading its way across the face of the World Cup and two-time Champions League winner.

Did he ever see Ally McCoist, his former team-mate and still a friend, as a future manager when he played with him at Rangers during the late 1990s?

"I always saw him as a showman," the 34-year-old AC Milan midfielder admits. "I didn't see Ally as a manager, but then I played with [my current coach] Massimo Allegri and never saw him as a manager, either. You can never say never with anybody."

Gattuso still very much remains a Ranger at heart after the season he spent in Glasgow. He met his Scots-Italian wife Monica during his spell at the club and still keeps in touch with a host of former Ibrox team-mates, including McCoist and Stuart McCall, the Motherwell manager.

After a flying visit to Glasgow over the Christmas period, there's nothing he'd like better than a summer return to toast a championship title with McCoist. "I think that he is a great person and can be a great manager for Rangers," said the 73-times capped Italian, who retired from international football after the last World Cup. "I'd really like Ally to win the league in his first season; it would be a wonderful achievement."

Key to that, though, is investment in a playing squad as thin as the latest model on the catwalks of Milan. "Ally does need to make sure that he keeps improving the team," warned Gattuso. "They have really missed a good chance to win the league early by dropping those 15 points. Mentally, it's very hard to come back from that. If you lose 15 points – especially in the Scottish league – that's difficult to recover from."

Gattuso's snarling midfield game won him a place in the hearts of Rangers supporters before he became a superstar in Italy. It's that same affection and support he believes the Ibrox crowd has to bestow upon McCoist and his players if they are to return to the top of the table by May.

Gattuso asked: "How can you not follow and back Ally? He's spent 30 years attached to Rangers. He's a funny person, but a real Rangers man, especially in the dressing room. That will be very important in the league run-in."

Despite Milan winning the Serie A title last season for the first time since 2004, Gattuso suffered a number of devastating blows during a turbulent 2011. He was given a four-match ban after headbutting Joe Jordan, the Tottenham Hotspur first team coach, during a Champions League match in February. Then, following a horrific collision with team-mate Alessandro Nesta during a game against Lazio in September, Gattuso suffered a paralysis of the seventh cranial nerve and was left blind in his left eye.

He then returned to Glasgow at the end of the year to help bury his beloved father-in-law, Mario Romano, a popular and respected Scots-Italian restaurateur, who died after a battle with cancer. The texts and messages of support from those he played with at Ibrox were most definitely appreciated. Gattuso said: "I still keep in touch with a lot of the Rangers players and I don't feel obliged to do so just because I played there. They are wonderful guys with big hearts."

As for the eye, and despite initially being ruled out for a minimum of six months, Gattuso has vowed to keep on playing and managed 45 minutes of a challenge match against nouveau riche Paris Saint-Germain in Dubai last week, as Milan wound down a winter training camp. Gattuso revealed, though, that it was simply a case of taking it step by step, and confirmed the injury prohibited him – both on-field and off – unlike any other he had encountered. "I just need to talk to the doctors and see how I get on. A match situation is completely different to training," he said.

With the chance of a second consecutive Serie A title very much in the offing, and a Champions League clash against Arsene Wenger's Arsenal to be played later this month, Allegri, the Milan manager, had little hesitation in declaring himself "delighted" with his return. The injury permitting, there remains in Gattuso the passion to eke more out of a distinguished and medal-laden playing career, though when he does hang up his boots, a crack at management certainly appeals – especially as a coach dealing with younger players. Gattuso does, however, admit with another grin that a curb in his notorious temper may be necessary if that wish is to be fulfilled.

As for a possible permanent return trip to Glasgow, Murray Park and Ibrox, there might be one stumbling block. "I like Glasgow and never say never, but it's too cold!" Gattuso said with a laugh.