Rangers boss Steven Gerrard says he is happy with how his squad is shaping up as they prepare for the new season.

Gers have begun the new campaign early because of Europa League qualifiers. Rangers beat St Joseph’s of Gibraltar 4-0 in the first leg of their first-round qualifying tie and warmed up for this week’s return leg with an impressive 4-0 win over Marseille at Ibrox at the weekend.

Daniel Candeias scored a double and others came from Jermain Defoe and Connor Goldson. Gerrard said the new signings he has added to the squad are already making an impact. George Edmundson, Joe Aribo, Greg Stewart and Jake Hastie have all been added with Swedish defender Filip Helander the latest to join up.

Gerrard said he feels the squad is progressing nicely and told Rangers TV: “I think you can see the quality of the new signings – straight away they’ve hit the ground running. We are hoping Filip [Helander] will follow suit.

“We are really pleased with the squad shaping up nicely – we’ve had two or three windows now to improve things and we are very close to where we want to be but now we have to do all the hard work now and produce that on a regular basis when the games come around.”

Following the return leg against St Joseph’s at Ibrox on Thursday, Gerrard’s side have games against Blackburn Rovers and Derby County before getting the new Scottish Premiership season underway on August 4 when they travel to Rugby Park to face Kilmarnock.

Their first league game at home is a week later when Hibs are the visitors to Ibrox. Rangers are 3.20 to win the Scottish Premiership next season with Celtic 1.33 and Aberdeen 21.00.