TO paraphrase Shania Twain, the Canadian country/pop artist who he spent last night dutifully watching at the SSE Hydro with his family, even Rangers’ best European result for years against Villarreal on Thursday night didn’t impress Steven Gerrard much.

Don’t get me wrong, he thought they were alright. But while he was wowed by the character his team showed - and certain moments of quality his team produced - to come from behind twice at El Madrigal, this thrilling 2-2 draw was very much being kept in context on the morning after the night before. It didn’t take the Englishman long to dig out the laptop on the three-hour flight back home from Spain in the wee small hours to pore over the footage of the match and see what areas his team can improve upon. “If you’re on a three-hour flight I know I wasn’t going to sleep so get it done, get it out of the way, and maybe I might be able to get a kip this afternoon,” he said.

While it will never replace the thrill of getting out there and playing, this is a snapshot into the all-consuming life which Steven Gerrard has chosen for himself in Glasgow. And so far, give or take conceding a rather timid Old Firm performance and a couple of late goals against Aberdeen and Motherwell, he is making a pretty decent fist of it.

“I would definitely have taken this position before we started, 100 per cent,” said Gerrard yesterday. “It’s difficult to gauge right now because obviously with Europe where we sit right now is fantastic but in the league I would like a few more points on the board.

“I’m not one to use any excuses, ‘we could have’, ‘we should have’, ‘maybe’…it is what it is,” he added. “But it’s important we take the second half performance from Villarreal into the league because when we came back from the international break my priority was the league games.”

So full-on is a job like the Ibrox hot-seat that the football is only one part of it; It is easy to forget the personal challenges it presents to a 38-year-old man whose wife Alex, three girls Lily-Ella, Lexie and Lourdes, and young son Lio still stay in the family home in Merseyside. But Gerrard even appears to be taking that in his stride.“I’m not away from my family - they are down south but I see them a lot,” he said. “They are up every single weekend and I get down the road at night, sometimes twice a week. So nothing has changed. I am probably seeing more of them now than I did as a player! So I’m happy.

“I’ve settled into Glasgow really well,” he added. “It’s similar to Liverpool in many ways. I don’t walk about much to be honest but then I don’t do that in Liverpool either. When I’m home I like to be at home with the family. I nip out every now and then for a coffee of something to eat. And I have been reeled into Shania Twain tonight – don’t ask how that has happened – but I have been bullied into it. That’s my exciting life.”

Grizzled veterans with years of experience in this management lark can find jobs like these a distinctly draining experience. Gerrard has only been in post three months and accepts he still has much to learn. But so far, for all the talk of the risk both he and the club were taking in this appointment, both are entitled to feel pretty good about the arrangement.

“Do I know the job now?” he said. “No, I am still learning. I will be learning all the time. When you are a player you don’t really appreciate what coaches and managers put into it. You just automatically think the same as a player - that you come in at 9 o’clock then go home at 2 o’clock or something. Managers are 24/7. It doesn’t stop.

“But I’m loving it. I’m really lucky to be in this position, to manage this fantastic club. I’m enjoying it, it’s a rollercoaster, it’s emotional. I wouldn’t change it for anything but it’s full on and it’s difficult to switch off.”

On the face of it, a routine home match against a low key St Johnstone side appears to be night and day to the adrenaline rush of those crazy last five minutes in Spain, when Rangers could either have won the match or lost it. Tommy Wright’s re-shaped side - who have won two and drawn one of their last four visits to Ibrox - will certainly present a vastly different challenge tomorrow. But Gerrard knows that his team will have to match the energy and technical level they reached in the second period in Spain where he was ‘kicking every ball’.

‘It will be very different,” said Gerrard. “St Johnstone have a lot of energy in midfield. I think Villarreal are more technical, with individuals who try and pass through the lines no matter where they are on the pitch. At times St Johnstone will go direct into [Tony] Watt, who is a fantastic target man. They get runners off him and have a lot of energy. They will cross a lot earlier than Villarreal. So the challenges from Thursday to Sunday are very different. What’s important is that we are in the right frame of mind for whatever challenge is thrown at us. We are not good enough – and have not had enough success recently- to pick and choose games.”

Alfredo Morelos and Jon Flanagan, both absent from Thursday’s outing in Spain, return, although Borna Barisic has picked up a muscle injury to join Ryan Jack, Gareth McAuley and Ovie Ejaria as pre-match doubts. Jamie Murphy and Jordan Rossiter are on the long-term injured list.