Rangers manager Derek McInnes heaped praise on Ryan Naderi after the Czech added another goal to his tally in the 2-0 win over St Mirren – but insisted there is still far more to come from his in-form striker.

The 23-year-old stepped up to slot home a first-half penalty to take his total to nine for the season in all competitions, with skipper Dan Neil adding a second shortly after the hour-mark to seal a valuable three points on the road.

The result moves McInnes’ men to within a point of Premiership leaders Celtic – who take on Kilmarnock this afternoon – ahead of the international break.

And the manager was delighted with the way in which his frontman shrugged off an earlier miss to take responsibility for the spot-kick which set Rangers on their way in what was a potential banana-skin encounter in Paisley.

‘His first port of call is to make sure he’s a handful to play against and I thought he was that,’ said McInnes. ‘I thought he ran the gaps, he made sure every one of their centre-backs knew he was there, which is very important.

‘He needs to build that reputation for being horrible to play against, but equally at a club like Rangers you’re going to get judged on the goals.

‘If you’re going to lead the line for us, then getting those goals is so important and thankfully with his stats he’s really contributing.

‘He’s probably a bit annoyed he never added to it, but I thought he was terrific.

‘You can’t be unsure, you can’t be thinking, “Do I belong here?”.

‘I think he’s totally shown that he’s somebody you can depend on, somebody that can be trusted, somebody that you can rely on to get goals as well as bring in good performances.’

Rangers are now unbeaten in their last 12, but although McInnes is pleased with his side’s progress after a sticky start to the season, he is under no illusions that there is much to improve on.

‘That type of form gets you close to where you want to get to,’ he said. ‘There’s still loads of work to do and loads of improvements in the team, as you can see.

‘If we take our chances, we take the game away from St Mirren and while it’s still 1-0, they are always going to keep going.

‘I still think that if we can win games and keep improving as we go along, then that’s the nature of the job for us. It’s just all about winning here.

‘The form has been really good, but we’re conscious that we’re not home and dry. We’re not the real deal yet. We’ve got loads of work to do to maintain that.

‘Every game we’ve won has been hard-fought and we’ve had to play well to get the win.’

Saints boss Craig McLeish wasn’t happy with referee Nick Walsh’s decision to award the visitors a first-half penalty after James Penrice went down under the challenge of Samuel Ramos.

‘If that’s the criteria for contact in the box, then fine,’ he said.

‘But Kabs [Ismael Kabia] gets wiped out in the second half after he puts a cross in. I don’t even know if anyone looks at it.

‘I get that if the ref gives it on the field, then it’s maybe difficult for VAR to overturn it.

‘I think if he doesn’t give it there and then, I don’t think VAR gets involved to give it.

‘It’s a difficult one and it’s a frustrating one from our point of view, but there’s also bits leading up to it getting to that situation that we need to deal with better.

‘I need to be careful with what I’m saying.

‘Somebody just told me that there, it’s like our seventh penalty we’ve given away in 13 games, which from our point of view is not good enough. We can’t give teams goals and put ourselves in a hole like that.’