By Stewart Fisher

NICKY Law had been waiting just ten games for his first goal of the season but it seemed like an eternity. "I felt like everybody else in the team had scored except me," said the Rangers midfielder.

His impression wasn't too far from the truth. Ten different players had already shared out 37 goals for the Ibrox first team until the Englishman climbed off the bench to put the seal on Saturday's 3-0 Championship victory against Livingston. As he comes into the last year of his contract, it was understandable if Law was a man in a hurry to issue a reminder to his manager. Perhaps chairman Dave King's pronouncement this week that he would be adding five new first-team players this summer in an attempt to challenge Celtic for the Premiership title in their first season back had also helped to focus the mind.

This, of course, is how competition amongst a squad of professional sportspeople should work. Where a raft of new arrivals during the summer lights a fire under certain members of the existing squad, gently persuading them to redouble their efforts. These are early days still but, whether it is hard and fast rules and codes of conduct, including compulsory urine tests with in-built fines for those who turn up to training with unsatisfactory hydration levels, or a keenness to run with a smaller group so as not to disenfranchise the club's younger players, Mark Warburton seems to have a keen grasp of these crucial group dynamics. Management always seems a lot easier when you are winning matches but already it seems like night and day from spells last season, where certain players were so far out of favour it seemed they could never come back.

Law isn't stressing about his contractual situation just yet but he knows there is no time like the present when it comes to making a lasting impression. "It’s down to myself, obviously," said the midfielder. "When I get the opportunities I have to do well. It’s quite early to be thinking about that at the minute but of course I’d like to have a bit of stability. When my chances come I have to keep trying to impress the manager. At the minute the squad has a lot of depth and come January and next summer, it will grow again and there will be maybe even more players coming in. It’s an exciting time for the club and obviously for myself and five or six other boys in the same position, we are desperately trying to impress the manager, to be a part of this club going forward.

"It was a big relief to score my first goal of the season and I needed it," he added. "It put the game to bed and I hope the goals will come thick and fast now. It has been difficult sitting on the bench but the manager pulled me aside before the Queen of the South game to say Jason Holt and Gedion Zelalem would be playing and he couldn’t really change it because he lads were fantastic."

It is this competition for places and desperation to make an impact which lies behind the minor dressing room inquest which took place at Ibrox on Saturday. There are few clubs in the world where a 3-0 home defeat is seen as a cause for concern but Livingston got as much joy in thwarting Rangers' attacking style as anyone has this season. They were unable to pose much in the way of threat, though, and were eventually undone by moments of individual skill. First, skipper Lee Wallace lashed in an unstoppable 30-yard drive, then Martyn Waghorn grabbed a rare goal from open play with a fine bit of penalty box striking work, before substitute Law finished things off with a smart angled finish. The Rangers players agreed amongst themselves that the drop in standards had been unacceptable and their manager quietly agreed with that analysis.

"There aren’t many clubs where you would get stick after a 3-0 win but that is because of the standards set by the manager," said Law. "He demands the best and that’s not just in the games but in training. I think even towards the end of last week in training he thought we were a bit flat for probably the first time since he has come in. That carried on into the Livingston game but last season we probably would have lost that game. He’s not a screamer and shouter. He didn’t say too much. He just let the lads talk and it was more the players who weren’t happy with it and the manager just kind of agreed with it. The standards that are set now from the manager down into the players and it was the players who want to nip that kind of performance in the bud early in the season, get that out of the way. We’ll be back in to train on Monday and to get back to the standards we’ve shown already this season.”

This Rangers side is blessed with a technical excellence in excess of anything that was at Ibrox last season but Saturday was a reminder there may be blips ahead, especially as canny Scottish managers devise a functioning blueprint to stop them. "All the new lads have been fantastic and every single one of them has hit the ground running," said Law. "But Saturday was probably the first time we’ve lowered our standards. We know teams are going to come and try to frustrate us but I thought they [Livingston] played very well. The new lads have only seen the good side of things so far. Along the way we will probably have a few blips along the way and it’s about how you learn from those."