HE helped Graeme Souness lead Rangers to their first Scottish title in nine long years in his first season in charge after being appointed assistant manager back in 1986.

And he also picked up the pieces when the disastrous Paul Le Guen experiment had ended in failure and brought a painful three year run without a league triumph to an end in 2009.

Yet, Walter Smith is in no doubt the challenge facing his successor Steven Gerrard is far greater than any he, or anybody else who has occupied the Ibrox dugout for that matter, ever had.

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Gerrard is under intense pressure to stop Celtic lifting the Ladbrokes Premiership trophy for a record-equalling ninth consecutive occasion come May.

And the defeat Rangers suffered at the hands of Hearts at Tynecastle on Sunday – which means that they can no longer leapfrog their city rivals into first place if they win their game in hand – did not go down well with supporters.

Smith - speaking at the launch of the Billy McNeill Fund, which has been set up by the family of the late Celtic great to provide monetary assistance and therapeutic aid to former players who are suffering from dementia, at Parkhead – has great sympathy for the current manager.

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He knows the financial meltdown that Rangers suffered back in 2012 and their subsequent drop down the divisions to the bottom tier of Scottish football is still hindering the man in charge.

But the 71-year-old, who won the Scottish title on 10 occasions during two spells at the helm, remains convinced that Gerrard can achieve his goal.

“Everybody at Rangers at the present moment, the board and the manager, are working under different circumstances to what I worked under a lot of the time,” he said.

“They have a harder job. Steven Gerrard has taken on a harder task than I took on my second time. Once I was there, a financial aspect came up when the bank came in and the club was put up for sale.

“But initially we were able to get in a number of players who were the foundation of my second spell there. Steven has not had that. It is very difficult to do that.

“You have got to appreciate that the board has to try and get out of the trouble that they were in previously and have had to work extremely hard. They are doing so and they are getting there.

“The defeat at Tynecastle, like everything else in Scotland, was exaggerated a wee bit. Rangers can still get back there and Rangers can still win the league. There haven’t been many of the last few seasons when we could have said that. This season they have as good an opportunity as they have had.”

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Smith added: “Rangers are getting a bit of stability on and off the pitch. But Celtic have had that for a great number of years now and that’s a benefit to them. That’s what Rangers have to overcome.

“And the people who are there at the moment probably have as hard a job as any board or team have ever had in trying to win a league. It’s a difficult task to come back from where they were. Especially at a club which had never been in those circumstances before.

“They had never had to work their way through the divisions and it’s a hard mentality for football clubs to get.”

Smith was heartened to learn that Gerrard has brought in Ianis Hagi, the son of Romanian great Gheorghe, on loan from Belgian club Genk until the end of the season and is hopeful of signing more players before the transfer window closes at midnight.

The former Everton and Scotland manager feels the Liverpool and England great needs more strength and depth if Rangers are to sustain their title challenge and prise the Premiership from the grasp of their Glasgow rivals.

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“Rangers have shown this year that they can get up there," he said. "Their performance in the cup final and their performance at Celtic Park were exceptionally good. They have shown they can get up there and do that.

“I think Steven would probably like to add a few players to his squad so that if they lose a player or two they can cover a bit easier than he has been able to do. That is one of the difficulties financially from a Rangers’ perspective.

“If you take a wee break during a period of time when you are away up there, as happened to Rangers last season, you can have a wee blip when you come back again. But they came again last season and they will come again now.”