With his team soaring along on a 12-game unbeaten run, stylistic grumbles certainly aren’t going to knock Derek McInnes off the cloud he’s currently perched on

St Mirren 0 Rangers 2 (Naderi, pen, Neil)

You have to wonder who spent longer staring into the skies over Paisley on Saturday, Dan Neil or the plane spotters hanging around near-by at the fences at Glasgow Airport?

With Rangers taking the Jet2 approach as they repeatedly zoomed the ball over the heads of the St Mirren defence, there were spells when the approaching aircraft on the flight path into the runway came closer to getting a touch than the man at the heart of Derek McInnes’ midfield.

But with his team continuing to soar along on a 12-game unbeaten run, stylistic grumbles certainly aren’t going to knock the Light Blues boss off the cloud he’s currently perched on. The Ibrox side might not always be the most pleasing on the eye - but when it comes to heart, it appears they’re made of far grittier stuff than Rangers line ups of old.

And right now they’re avoiding a repeat of the nasty habit previous Ibrox squads had, the one that would see them fall out of the sky at the first hint of danger. Certainly there are times in games where they offer up so much space and possession to opponents that their fans are left feeling like a 737 that’s just been turfed about by a bout of extreme turbulence.

But for as long as McInnes is content to sacrifice a man in midfield in order to get a second striker up top, the Ibrox support are going to have to be prepared to live with such headwinds.

“I'd like us, when we are in charge of games, to show that control,” said Del in the build-up to Saturday evening’s victory over the Buddies. “Sometimes when you go with two strikers, you're in danger of giving up that control somewhere, depending on how the opposition set up.”

Right now Neil is the man having to give up his slice of the possession pie. The former Sunderland skipper gave a brilliant demonstration of the command he can exert on proceedings in the double derby win over Celtic ahead of the last international break.

But increasingly since then, he’s found himself playing off scraps and only really influencing games once Rangers have worn down their rivals’ energy levels. Perhaps that was why McInnes chose to leave him on the bench for the Premier Sports Cup semifinal last week, only throwing him on against Aberdeen once the ferocity of the Dons’ early press had waned, allowing Manny Fernandez and Olwethu Makhanya the time to pick their passes and actually find bodies in midfield.

It was a move that worked, with Neil’s calm amid the frenzy of a late breakaway opening the angle for James Penrice to fire in the ball from which Ryan Naderi snatched the winner. On Saturday night in Paisley, Neil may as well have spent the first half sitting in the stands given how little he saw of the ball.

Thankfully for his manager, Rangers were already ahead by that stage having been awarded a 15th-minute penalty after Penrice had hit the deck following a challenge from Samuel Ramos.

Now the clip to Penrice’s toe might not exactly have matched up the brutality on show at the bareknuckle boxing fest taking place 10 miles down the road at the Hydro that night, but it was clear enough on the VAR screens to mean that Nick Walsh’s decision was never going to be overturned.

Naderi showed the impact his recent goalscoring run has had on his own confidence levels as he cooly, calmly stepped up to take it, stuttering and then stroking a delicate little rolled effort past Jacob Chapman.

McInnes spoke of the need to find a replacement for departed penalty king James Tavernier. Naderi has a long way to go to match the former captain’s tally of 77 successful efforts from the spot but this was a decent start as he made it nine goals in his last 14 games.

But once ahead and with Saints struggling to get going after the half-time break, Neil’s influence finally grew. It wasn’t always the full run through of his range of passing, but the short shunts here and five-yard balls there ensured Rangers spent more of the second half playing on the ground than troubling air traffic control.

Badredine Bouanani and Minsu Kim continue to offer a live wire threat coming in off the wings - although the South Korean is showing signs that his wait for a first goal is playing on his mind having twice frozen when the chance was on to score.

He deserved an assist, though, for a beautiful little through ball that Kevin Kelsy really should have finished off. In the end, it was left to Neil to put daylight between the teams on 61 minutes. Kelsy lead the charge but fumbled what should have been an easy pass for Kim.

That was a let off for St Mirren - but the Buddies failed to clear the danger as Calvin Ramsey inadvertently prodded the ball to Neil, whose strike skipped off Declan John before bouncing past the stranded Chapman. Rangers weren’t quite home and hosed at the point and needed a couple of big stops from their increasingly impressive Croatian keeper Ivor Pandur to ensure there was no nervy finish.

But having almost crash landed at Ibrox after his summer appointment, McInnes will now believe his team are climbing back to the heights the club believe they should be operating at. And if they can pick up where they left off after the international break, there is a real chance for this Rangers side to take flight ahead of their Premier Sports Cup final date with Hibs on December 13.