It is all about the small steps rather than the giant leaps for Rangers. After so many backwards, this was another in the right direction under Michael Beale.
There have been times this season where the search for positives has been a forlorn endeavour but each of Beale's five matches in charge have been enlightening in different respects. He has learned something from every one of them and about those who he has had little option but to place his trust in.
Beale spoke in the aftermath of the draw with Celtic about the Old Firm fixture being a 'big indicator' as he looked into the eyes of his players and sought to determine who was really with him. He is now a month into that voyage of discovery at Ibrox and the coming days and weeks will be public evidence of what Beale has deduced behind closed doors.
The derby was case of so near yet so far. It encapsulated the good and the bad from a season of fleeting highs and soul searching lows for Rangers and was another informative outing as Beale continues to pick up the pieces from Giovanni van Bronckhorst.
This was a match that Rangers could and should have won. The fact that such a sentiment has been so prevalent this term epitomises their predicament and it is hard to see how the nine point deficit to Celtic is overturned now that another game, a must-win one at that, has come and gone.
Rangers need fresh faces and new ideas. The scale of the work required is not as great as it was when Beale first arrived at Ibrox alongside Steven Gerrard four-and-a-half years ago but the feeling of an impending overhaul is similar and the way in which the Englishman speaks about the task and the challenge tells its own story.
"If we’re not moving in the right direction at times or [not] improving I’ll be the first to put up my hand, that’s what I’ve been brought in to do," Beale said after second half goals from Ryan Kent and James Tavernier were only enough to earn his side a draw at Ibrox. "I think the biggest thing I have seen today is one or two players waking up for themselves and the standards this club needs for them in terms of effort and commitment.
"I said to them at half time just embrace the hard work, go where it hurts for each other that had to become a norm. Standards in training need to go up, more people staying fit for longer periods of time and stepping up for the club.
"It’s the same for all the staff as well, I’ve come in I want to give things a shake, I want to drag it forwards, put the coat hanger back in the club and drive the standards. If we do that performances should come off the back of it.
"It’s a special football club and we’re lucky to play here. Whoever we recruit is lucky to come here. The ones who may leave will struggle to play for a bigger a club in my opinion.
"While they are here it’s important we show value for the shirt, today they did and with a little bit of fortune they’d have won the game."
Victory over Celtic would have been welcomed and celebrated but it wouldn't have addressed the wider issues that continue to afflict Rangers and the Old Firm encounter served to reaffirm the long-standing views that many supporters have about just where the side, and those that make it up, are right now. The league doesn't lie, after all.
Beale rhymed off a handful of players - including Ridvan Yilmaz, Ianis Hagi and Tom Lawrence - that he needs available sooner rather than later and the returns of the walking wounded, coupled with further forays into the transfer market, will have a positive impact on a squad and team that continue to underperform individually and as a collective.
"We have loads to do," Beale said. "It will take a long time to get back to the control and dominance we have had. But so far, so good.
"We have played five games, six if you include Leverkusen, and we have shown the good, the bad and the ugly. Today was nearer where I want the performance levels to be.
"I thought in the first half hour we were a little bit cheap with the ball and that just comes with us getting back the patterns we used to have and getting to work on the training pitch.
"We have had 20 training sessions and five games. We have not had the time we would need.
"We have not had the time the opponent today have had, and they are a good team. We went toe to toe with them and we did what I asked them to do which was go toe-to-toe and see where we are. We need to maintain our standards moving forward.
"We just cannot get up for only big games. We need to maintain the standards every single week. We are having the issues we are having in the league because we probably have not been as consistent as them."
That mention of control is key. That trait was so evident throughout Beale's time working under Gerrard and it will take time for his methodology to become second nature to Rangers once again.
There were times when watching Gerrard's side play was like witnessing a game of Subbuteo as the shape that was so well drilled and effective allowed Rangers to dominate derbies, almost removing the quirks of fate and moments of madness or genius that so often decide such fixtures.
Rangers looked like a side that needed individual interventions - such as those provided by Kent with his fine finish or via the unpredictability of Fashion Sakala - for them to prevail in the second Old Firm of the season and it was still far removed from the Gerrard blueprint of the 55 season.
The familiar failing of being unable to kill teams off haunted Rangers once again and Beale pointed to the concession of another two goals, each so avoidable, as he assessed what he believed was the most complete performance of his tenure.
It was a day when two points dropped at Ibrox. Yet it was the ones that learned rather than the one ultimately earned that could be the most significant takeaway of all for Beale after another small step in the right direction.
