DUJON Sterling says the first few days of the winter training camp in Spain have been tough as the squad look to build for the remainder of the season.
The 24-year-old played a key role for Philippe Clement’s side in December stepping into a new position in midfield but now he wants to use the camp to push himself ahead of the return of competitive fixtures next Saturday.
Sitting down at the training camp for an exclusive interview with RangersTV, Sterling said: “It has been tough, the gaffer has been putting us to work and obviously it is to build for the rest of the season and hopefully we can have an enjoyable end to the season.
“The gaffer has changed the mindset, he has got us to a place where we are really comfortable and you can see from the general morale around the building that we are all happy and we all want better for each other.
“For me personally I want to use this week to get fitter so that I can last 90 minutes every three days and be stronger. I just want to build and become more robust so that I can help the team from the start.
“It was a bit stop start for me at the start of the season, I had the calf injury and then I had a problem with my eye which needed to get sorted out before I could start playing so I was out of training for a month but since the start of December it has been great.”
On moving into a new midfield role, Sterling insists he is learning every game as he adapts to playing in a more central position. He continued: “I was excited to be honest, going into every game I was just happy to be playing and having the manager’s trust.
“For me it was about learning as I go so every game, I am learning how to play the role, how to improve on playing that role and hopefully I have been playing well and he can still trust me in there.
“When you are playing on the wings you know that the line is there, and you have only got to really look inside whereas in midfield you have to do 360 scans, so it was just learning.
“I’ve been watching Lunny mostly because he is the one who has been fit out of all our midfielders and then I’ve just been just going on YouTube and searching up clips of midfielders from the past and what they did, how they played, who is like me and trying to implement some of their stuff.”
With a closed-door friendly in Spain against Hertha Berlin on Saturday, followed by the visit of FC Copenhagen to Ibrox on Tuesday evening, Sterling hopes the squad can continue to build under Philippe Clement.
“For the squad it is about trying to keep playing well,” he continued. “We have to keep trying to implement what the gaffer wants us to do and keep building on that. Although it is not really based on the results of these next two games, we still want to win and have a good performance with it as well.”