Rangers star opens up on the POSITIVES of Dundee pitch postponement – ‘It’s not like we were in prison’

THEY checked in to a plush St Andrews five-star luxury hotel. The way John Souttar sees it, it wasn’t like the Rangers squad were banged up and behind bars in jail. Willie VassJohn Souttar has been bandaged up since a clash with Connor Goldson last week[/caption] Willie VassHe says Gers players used the doomed Dundee trip as another bonding session[/caption] SNSRangers were raging the game didn’t get the go-ahead on Wednesday[/caption] That’s why the Ibrox centre-half shrugs off the idea that this week has been a punishing existence for Philippe Clement and his players. Sure, they would all far rather have had a match to play on Wednesday, with yet another postponement bringing bitter disappointment. But Souttar insisted: “It’s not like we were going up there and staying in a prison. “We were in a very nice hotel so I’m not going to complain about going up there and spending a day with the boys. “We’re a close-knit group so it’s not like we went up there and spend the time on our own with everyone raging with the game being called off. We’re all close so we went up there and had a good time. It’s a way of bonding as well. “We wouldn’t have worked on the Ross County game until Thursday anyway. “We could sit and be negative about everything but I prefer to be positive and focus on that. “Everyone does different things on away trips. A few of us go for coffees, a few play cards, others will be on the PlayStation. “It’s good. When you go away to hotels all the staff and all the boys are together. “It brings everyone together. To win things I think that’s important. “That’s something we can take away from the stay out there. “The manager is big on that. We have great staff here. Everyone is close so trips like that are never wasted. It’s far from ideal what happened and how it was. “But I don’t think too many boys were raging. It is what it is and we just had to deal with it.” Souttar spent the early part of his career in Dundee — at United — and admits he just wants the game to go ahead in the City of Discovery next week. He added: “I think I played a couple at Tannadice, maybe once at Dens. I can’t remember the pitch being what it is now, to be honest. “But everyone played on bad pitches as a kid, you just got on with it. You’d rather play on a good pitch especially when you want to play good football. “Everyone would have preferred the game to go ahead but it didn’t and that’s that.” Souttar has been through enough in football, and in his private life, to know there is nothing to be gained from sweating over the small stuff. That’s why he’s not overly worried about what could or couldn’t happen in the coming weeks. If things go his way, the stopper could win a league title and be heading off to the Euros with Scotland in the summer. ReutersSouttar says the tight-knit squad benefitted from their hotel stay together[/caption] Willie VassThe Gers stopper is nine games from a treble after struggling through last season[/caption] Kenny RamsayDefender Souttar (left) is refusing to look too far ahead with the Euros on the horizon[/caption] But he’s not even looking that far ahead. He added: “I think you need to keep your feet on the ground. “Like anything in life, if you look too far ahead you can get distracted and that can take you away from being in the now. “For me, it’s about focusing on the next day and the next game and not looking too far into the future. “I just want to do everything I can every day and the rest will take care of itself. “I think I’ve always been like that. But probably being through the injuries I’ve been through has made me take every day one at a time. “I also don’t take any day for granted in football because you never know what’s around the corner. “If you overthink things and try and calculate things in your head then it becomes distracting. “As soon as the manager came in, he was talking to us about forgetting everything else. He wanted us to focus on every session and every game. “He said, ‘If you do that then we’ll be in a good position’ and now we’re in a far better position than we were before he came in, so there is no reason for us to change now.” Souttar is enjoying regular football as a Rangers player having come through tough times with bad injuries in the early part of his Ibrox career. And asked if he is taking personal satisfaction from that, he added: “I think at the end of the season I will look back and focus on it then.] Right now, I’ve just been training and playing and my body’s feeling good. “It’s been really enjoyable playing under the manager and with the boys here. “But this has got to be close to the most I have played in a season. “I’d probably say it’s close if not the most consistently I’ve played in my career.” The fact Rangers are battling for the title at all speak