Olwethu Makhanya is shaping up to be everything Rangers needed in their search for defensive reinforcements in the summer. 

A solid presence at the back, a young and hungry talent very much on the up and a leader with real personality.

If it didn’t look so likely that someone will come in before long and offer the Ibrox board the chance to make a healthy profit on the £3million they paid to Philadelphia Union for the 22-year-old, you’d put him down as a nailed-on future captain.

He’s helping set the standards required if Rangers are to overhaul arch-rivals Celtic in the title race and was absolutely spot-on after rescuing an ill-deserved point with a late equaliser at Tynecastle on Wednesday when bemoaning a lack of character at the start of the second half and the fact Hearts worked harder and showed more desire.

It’s the kind of honesty many Ibrox sides of recent years have needed. A public kick up the backside for underperforming team-mates, the footballing equivalent of getting the whip out and a necessary form of assurance for frustrated supporters that there is at least someone inside the dressing room who feels the way they feel, who wants what they want.

It’s why it is to be hoped that manager Derek McInnes’ remarks the morning after were not some attempt to gently slap down the South African.

McInnes, of course, is entitled to his own opinion about the reserves of character within his squad. Maybe he did disagree with Makhanya’s version of events, or his questioning of the side’s resilience. 

Alternative viewpoints delivered respectfully are fine. More than fine. They are a sign of a healthy workplace.

It just felt like it was all skirting a little too close to a chastisement of the big centre-back’s comments. 

And whether that was the intention or not, being seen to chastise a player whose sentiments are clearly coming from the right place, from a burning desire to make a club with one league crown in 15 years be successful again, is not necessarily the right course of action to take.

It happened, if you remember, with Dujon Sterling back in Philippe Clement’s first season as boss when an April collapse that involved a home draw with Celtic, a 3-2 loss at Ross County and a stalemate at Dundee pretty much killed off hopes of lifting the title.

‘We owe ourselves a performance… because we have been s**t the past three games,’ said Sterling in the aftermath at Dens Park. ‘We are fighting for a title and the way we are playing, it is as if we are not playing for anything. It’s like the season is dead and it is a dead-rubber game.’

It felt like a cry from the heart, a desperate plea to those around him to breathe life into a dying campaign. It was a truth that had to be told.

Clement, meanwhile, was already well on the way to losing the plot at that point, claiming his side were ‘moral winners’ after snatching that draw with Celtic thanks to a late goal and insisting that he was happy his side ‘bossed it’ at Dens.

Criticising Sterling afterwards just made him look even more like he didn’t get it, had lost all sight of what being at Rangers — or any club that has to win at all costs — was about.

‘It’s the words of a player who is disappointed because we lost points and maybe lacks a bit of experience in that way,’ stated the Belgian waffler. ‘That’s things for young players to learn and become better in. It’s more talking out of frustration.’

That’s the standard response from football persons, of course. The whole business, for some time, has revolved around young players having it battered into them that it’s better to say nothing, to drone on dead-eyed through interviews, bat everything away, put their personality on the bonfire, ‘don’t get too up or too down’.

It’s nonsense, though. McInnes honed his trade in a Nine-In-A-Row Rangers dressing room full of huge characters who built unbreakable bonds while still being able to dig each other out, demand more, be confrontational.

Sure, it happened more behind doors than in the public gaze, but things are different now from the way they were 30 years ago. Social media has changed the landscape so drastically. Fan narratives do drive boardroom decisions and that has arguably been clearer at Ibrox in recent times than anywhere.

There’s a concern still living just under the surface among a large number of Rangers fans that there is an ingrained loser mentality at their club and plenty of evidence to back that up.

Admittedly, the playing staff has changed drastically since then, but it is impossible to forget Billy Dodds reflecting on his time as a first-team coach for interim boss Barry Ferguson and talking about how 70 per cent of signings had been wrong and that the dressing room had a number of weak characters who couldn’t handle adversity.

Even before Danny Rohl left for Red Bull Salzburg last season, he talked about players being ‘too lazy to recover’ in key moments. He also spoke about how some of the squad were ‘very quiet’ when he first took over.

Supporters of Rangers, treated to some amount of failure and in-house claptrap over the last decade or more, need to see evidence that those on the field care the way they do.

The kind of frank analysis delivered by Makhanya — in a calm and considered way, it should be said — need not be the negative so many inside football are programmed to think.

If anything, seeing guys wear their hearts on their sleeve can serve to strengthen the relationship between fans and their favourites in difficult times.

The modern-day audience have had enough of failing players promising to learn lessons and move on. At outfits judged on league titles and facing pressure to win every week, learning lessons is the last thing on the agenda. You really ought to know what needs done by that stage.

Punters want to see the real people behind the branding, measure their minerals. And we’re on about more than just those cringeworthy features on club TV where players quiz each other on whether they prefer Jaffa Cakes or KitKats while playing a game of ping-pong. It’s showing a bit of what’s really inside, being properly authentic, that resonates.

In fairness to McInnes, his messaging as Rangers boss has generally been good so far. He didn’t shy away from the paucity of those performances in losing in Europe to Jagiellonia Bialystok and Jablonec.

He hasn’t indulged in deflection. He confronted the speculation that was already beginning to swirl about his future after that Jablonec catastrophe, handled it well and steered the side to safer ground with two excellent back-to-back wins against Celtic. 

He has been honest and upfront and entirely understanding of the expectations that rest upon his shoulders.

His team is still guilty of switching off in games. Centre-back Manny Fernandez, although the manager must back him publicly, is the epitome of that.

His players still have to show they can be consistent enough to prevail against a Celtic side that is most definitely there for the taking. They need to keep the pedal to the metal and to deliver 90-minute performances or, at least, maintain control throughout.

It is a squad light on trophies on the CV and with a number of younger players. It is going to need regular reminders as this race plays out.

If Makhanya or Sterling or anyone else want to take it upon themselves to put those reminders out there, it shouldn’t be regarded as a bad thing. And it definitely shouldn’t be discouraged.