Kevin Kelsy spoke in his first interviews with Rangers last week about knowing how to manage pressure and being ready to take on greater responsibility.

Well, you’ve come to the right place to put all that to the test, old fruit. 

Yesterday’s 20-minute cameo at the end of a 1-0 win over Motherwell might have been a relatively gentle introduction to life at Ibrox for the Venezuelan, thanks to a little stiffness felt after traversing the Atlantic to tie up his four-year contract and putting in a couple of days’ training.

Circumstances have dictated, though, that the 22-year-old’s moment to step up to the plate and get Rangers’ season back on the straight and narrow is already here. Big-time.

Even manager Derek McInnes noted the disappointment among the fanbase when Lawrence Shankland, later spotted hobbling out of the stadium on crutches and sporting a leg brace, left the field with a hamstring injury after eight minutes to be replaced by Ryan Naderi.

Sure, the German went on to score the matchwinning goal shortly afterwards when robbing Alex Paulsen outside his own area and rolling the ball into an empty net after the Motherwell goalkeeper had made a howling mess of dealing with a simple backpass from Martin Moormann.

Kevin Kelsy must step up and show the ruthlessness that Rangers lacked against Motherwell

South Korean attacker Kim Min-su misses a first-half penalty in Rangers’ 1-0 victory at Ibrox 

Striker Lawrence Shankland leaves the field in dismay after picking up a hamstring injury 

The public wanted a look at their new £9million man signed from Portland Timbers, though. They wanted to see what had prompted the club to invest so heavily in a relatively unexposed talent when three available strikers were already on the books in the shape of Shankland, Naderi and Bojan Miovski.

That came late on, of course. Although it is completely impossible to judge anyone on the basis of a 20-minute outing, he looked perfectly able. And he’d better be – because two weeks that could make or break the Light Blues’ campaign are upon us and they really need a talisman to step to the fore.

Naderi did fine against the Steelmen. Would you really put the house on him to lead the line in next Sunday’s Premier Sports Cup quarter-final against Celtic at Ibrox, though, and the league clash at Parkhead the following weekend?

It’s hard to see how anyone would. There are reasons why Kelsy was brought in and they must involve the management team feeling they need more of a personality player leading the line in the games where it really matters.

He can maybe look at Wednesday’s Premiership visit of St Mirren as a chance to sharpen his teeth. Perhaps McInnes will choose to use him sparingly again as he settles into his new environment.

Make no mistake, though, Kelsy has to be the go-to man for these Old Firm extravaganzas. Like it or not, that mighty transfer fee alone dictates it. He is match-fit from playing in Major League Soccer and should be ready to go, ready to show that he is ready to act on those sentiments about handling expectation and showing he’s capable of taking considerable weight on those shoulders of his.

Let’s get the elephant in the room ushered out the door first. Kelsy missed a sitter against Motherwell.

With 75 minutes on the clock and Rangers pushing hard to get the second goal that would have killed this stone-dead, a low cross from the left from James Penrice took the slightest deflection and sat up perfectly for him around ten yards out.

It was a moment he would have dreamed of. A perfect opportunity to get off to a flier. He got it all wrong, though, getting his left foot under the ball and sending a pretty dreadful effort off the top of the crossbar.

Other than that, though, the 6ft 4in forward looked fine. He put himself around well, showed there is an ability to link up play there, suggested there is going to be good workrate and a willingness to run at defenders in his armoury.

Goals should come too. Anyone watching his highlights reel from Portland – he left having scored ten times in 22 outings in all competitions this season – can see that he can finish.

And if there’s something Rangers really need right now, it’s a finisher. Shankland had come up with the goods in the previous two league wins with three goals in total away to Aberdeen and Falkirk. Yet this, outwith Naderi’s early piece of opportunism, was an exercise in real wastefulness.

South Korean attacker Kim Min-su missed a penalty on the half-hour – an atrocious effort sent spectacularly wide of Paulsen’s right-hand post – and spurned at least one other great chance before making way for Kelsy.

Penrice also hit the woodwork, seeing a close-range effort come off the upright, and Daisuke Yokota had a shocker when sending the ball high and wide when having the ball passed to him inside the area by visiting midfielder Lukas Fadinger.

Paulsen also made good saves from the lively Djeidi Gassama and Kim with Nico Raskin having a second-half effort cleared off the goal-line by Moormann too.

Chance-creation certainly wasn’t an issue for Rangers here. It was sticking those chances in the pokey that was a problem and that, let’s be quite frank, is what Kelsy is here for.

When you push so hard for a guy, put that kind of dough into making a deal happen at the tail-end of the window, wrapping him up in cotton wool isn’t an option.

Rangers played reasonably well here but some of the reactions felt a little extreme. It was also difficult to agree with McInnes’s assertion that Motherwell were completely nullified.

Home keeper Ivor Pandur had four saves to make, after all, and Fadinger passed up a great opportunity when just not hitting the ball early enough towards the end of the first 45.

It was a definite step forward for the home side, though, and there’s no denying what further progress being made in these upcoming games with Celtic would do too.

Beating Martin O’Neill’s side at home in a knockout cup competition would really present an opening to change the narrative for McInnes and his men in the wake of those European disasters at the hands of Jagiellonia Bialystok and Jablonec earlier in the season.

Not losing to them at Parkhead the following weekend would also prevent any yawning gaps opening up between them and the defending champions in the title race.

These are big games for this new-look Rangers, all right. Massive ones that could have a massive say on what comes next.

The clever money says they won’t get as many goalscoring opportunities in those games as they did against Motherwell. That’s why the big money that saw them go all-in on Kelsy has got to result in him being invited to put his words into action in a starting jersey.

Rangers (4-2-3-1): Pandur 7; Sterling 7, Fernandez 7 (Godfrey 90), Makhanya 7, Penrice 7; Raskin 7, Neil 7; Curtis 6, Kim Min-su 6 (Kelsy 70), GASSAMA 7 (Yokota 70); Shankland 5 (Naderi 8). 

Manager: Derek McInnes 7.

Booked: None.

Motherwell (4-2-3-1): Paulsen 4; Sparrow 6, Girdwood-Reich 6, Moormann 6, Longelo 6 (Williams 74); Hodge 7, Fadinger 6; Maswanhise 6 (Bjorgolfsson 83), Lowry 6 (Levitt 74), Said 6 (Kanga 46); Charles-Cook 6 (Palmer-Houlden 63). 

Manager: Alfred Johansson 6.

Booked: None.

Referee: Duncan Nicolson.

Attendance: 50,868.