Derek McInnes explains what pleased him most about Rangers victory vs St Mirren as two stars earn glowing praise

Derek McInnes believes Rangers are showing encouraging signs of progress after extending their unbeaten domestic run to 12 games with a dominant 2-0 Premiership victory at St Mirren.

The Ibrox side had to negotiate another difficult test in Paisley last night, but Ryan Naderi’s first-half penalty and a deflected Dan Neil strike secured a valuable three points for the visitors and maintained the positive momentum behind McInnes' team heading into the final international break of the year.

While the score line suggested a relatively comfortable evening, the Light Blues boss acknowledged the challenges posed by St Mirren, particularly their willingness to press, commit players forward and test their defensive organisation. However, he was delighted with how his players responded.

“I thought we dealt with the game really well. I thought we were really competitive from the get-go, I thought we were tenacious, we were aggressive, we moved the ball right,” McInnes said. “We just came back to that last part of it not being clinical enough. Quite ironic, we scored two goals tonight from a penalty kick and a deflected shot at the edge of the box, given all the chances we had.”

One player continuing to make a significant impression is Naderi, who has now contributed nine goals and five assists so far this season. The forward's development has been a major highlight in recent weeks, with McInnes particularly impressed by his work-rate, physical attributes and ability to stretch opposition defences.

He admitted: “I think Ryan’s so willing. His first port of call was to make sure he's a handful to play against and I thought he was that. 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.”

The Rangers boss also reserved considerable praise for goalkeeper Ivor Pandur, who produced a couple of late saves to help his side register another clean sheet. And McInnes believes the Croatian’s consistency has become an important foundation for his team.

“I think he's been very clean, very controlled with what he does,” McInnes explained. “His distribution is brilliant, he makes good decisions. He came for a couple of crosses. I think there's so much potential.. With a rotten goalie, you're not winning nothing. He is somebody who we really take a lot of comfort from.”

McInnes insists Rangers still have room for improvement

McInnes feels his side are trending in the right direction, but insists performance-levels must continue to improve with next month’s Premier Sports Cup final just five weeks away.

Asked about the importance of extending their unbeaten run, the manager replied: “Considering where we were ahead of that game at Pittodrie, I think it's been good shooting for the lads. I think eight wins and two draws in the league, that type of form gets you close to where you want to get to. We said that, so we feel as though we're going in the right kind of way.

“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, St Mirren 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 away. 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.”