Gers will carry a 4-2 lead back to Ibrox for next week’s second leg as goals from Alfredo Morelos, Joe Aribo, Nikola Katic and Scott Arfield secured a super advantage for the second leg.
Speaking tonight to RangersTV, Gerrard beamed: “I’m very proud of the performance. I think everyone to a man was fantastic tonight, and it is a great result but it is only half-time and there is still a lot of work to do.
“We need to go and carry out the gameplan in the second leg exactly how the boys did tonight. I thought we were very close to a perfect performance, although we have conceded a couple of goals.
“I thought we stood up to their physical presence and I thought some of the goals we scored tonight were fantastic.
“I have nothing but praise for my players. This is a difficult opposition who have good players.
“They are very big in profile and you can see their set-piece threat. They have got good players and technicians who can hurt you.
“I thought Jon Flanagan for his first start was immense. The two centre-backs were fantastic again and Joe Aribo again gets an unbelievable goal.
“Scott Arfield got a lovely little pass finish and if anyone was doubting Big Buff [Alfredo Morelos’] commitment to this club, just watch that back for 90 minutes as I thought he was outstanding.”
The character shown by his side when Midtjylland pulled the score back to 3-2 also delighted Gerrard who added: “You saw it at the weekend, so it is no surprise to me or the fans. We saw it a lot of times last year. But, I believe we have grown up.
“We never panicked at 3-2. We knew we were still in front and we showed great composure to go and get another one and that could be a very important goal.
“We respect the opposition and we will respect them in the second leg. The important thing now is the players need to realise a lot of hard work needs to go into the second leg.
“But, we have Hibernian to focus on, so we need to forget Midtjylland for a week and really focus on trying to build on our performance at Kilmarnock.
“But I need Ibrox to be rocking at the weekend as we have put a lot into tonight so we need the crowd at the weekend.”