Aaron Ramsey speaks on his Rangers debut, the plan for more minutes and what he has 'already been warned about'

Aaron Ramsey is looking forward to building on his first appearance for Rangers as he reflected on making his Ibrox debut in the 5-0 win over Hearts on Sunday.
Aaron Ramsey made his Rangers debut in the 5-0 win over Hearts. (Photo by Ross MacDonald / SNS Group)Aaron Ramsey made his Rangers debut in the 5-0 win over Hearts. (Photo by Ross MacDonald / SNS Group)
Aaron Ramsey made his Rangers debut in the 5-0 win over Hearts. (Photo by Ross MacDonald / SNS Group)

The Wales midfielder replaced Scott Arfield in the 76th minute after being named on the bench for the first time since joining on loan from Juventus on the final day of the January transfer window.

Rangers now head into a busy schedule of eight matches in four weeks and Ramsey revealed a plan has been put in place to build up his match minutes with Hibs next up at Ibrox on Wednesday.

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"It was a good one to come on in," Ramsey reflected. "Obviously the boys played really well today, won 5-0, and I'm just really happy to make my debut, in front of that atmosphere, was brilliant.

"Hopefully now I can play a lot more and get my fitness up quickly and really get going.

"We've got a brief plan of how we're going to do that. It was a plan to get some minutes in the legs today, 15 to 20 minutes, so yeah, good to be back out there.

"I haven't played a lot of football. I think the last time was November, so it was good to get back out there on the pitch and hopefully now we can progress nicely.

"There's so many games coming up so there's a lot of opportunities to get some minutes in and progress now with more minutes over the coming weeks."

Ramsey revealed he was desperate to get on the pitch as he continually looked for the call from manager Giovanni van Bronckhorst after being sent out to warm-up midway through the second half.

"I'm always excited to get on the pitch," he said. "I haven't played a lot recently and I was itching to get on there.

"I kept looking over because the warm-up was going on a bit, so eventually we got the nod to get on. I was happy to make my debut, to get on, and it's good to get some minutes in the legs for me to really kick on and progress over the next few weeks."

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Ramsay was a spectator at Celtic Park on Wednesday as Rangers crashed to a 3-0 defeat to their title rivals but the former Arsenal man was impressed with the reaction against Hearts.

"Today we needed to show a reaction from the last result, and we certainly did that. We're a really good team with a lot of talented players. These results sometimes happen. I've had many of them in my career, but it's how you respond to these little setbacks and we certainly did that today.

"It was important for us to get going from the off and we did that with the tackles, and the chances we created, We really got the crowd behind us early on. That's the benchmark now and hopefully we can continue from where we left off today."

After hosting Hibs on Wednesday, Rangers head into a Scottish Cup fifth round tie away to League Two side Annan Athletic, which will see Ramsey visit the tight confines of the 2500-capacity Galabank Stadium.

"I've been warned about that already!" he joked. "I love the cup competitions. There's a great tradition there and you get to visit these smaller clubs. It's great all around. I've had a lot of success in [the FA Cup] so I'm coming here as well to hopefully have a positive cup run. I'm looking forward to that game in Annan as well."

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