It is doubtful that when Pedro Caixinha was looking to persuade the likes of Carlos Pena, Eduardo Herrera, Daniel Candeias and Fabio Cardoso to join Rangers, the bracing nature of the Scottish climate figured highly in his sales pitch.

The Caledonian winter is a difficult thing for most natives to deal with, let alone someone who has come here from more temperate climes. The Portuguese coach may well have asked himself the time-honoured question though, could this player do it on a wild and wet Wednesday night in Dingwall?

Thankfully, the Rangers manager has a cunning plan tucked under his still impressively-tanned arm, at least to this peely-wally Scotsman, to maintain the vitality of his players during the dark winter months. The Rangers players will be permitted to hop on a plane and escape the wall-to-wall dreichness that lies in wait should they have a few days off, while the use of sunbeds and supplementary medication will be encouraged.

In short, by getting vitamin D into his players any which way he can.

“We don’t play until next Sunday, so we have three days off, and on those days, I will go to Portugal to take some vitamin D,” said Caixinha, himself already feeling the effects of life on the Costa del Clyde.

“We need to get used to the winter here. Pedro Mendes was the first to tell me about the need for sunlight here. He used to go on a sunbed to make sure he got his vitamin D.

“The players can also take a plane and go wherever they want on their time off. It is part of their lives and they need to understand it. I need to incentivise them to do it.

“I don’t need a vitamin D machine, I’ll just go to Portugal and take it directly, but I have spoken to the doctor about the need for vitamin D and I think it is part of the players' prescriptions here.

“They need to take it because it directly affects your bones. You need vitamin D like you need food. Your bones need it, otherwise it will be easier to break them.

“I’m losing my colour here. I’m looking grey, not great!”

Caixinha is putting a lot of effort into making sure his Rangers players find time to relax. For him, the best and most effective players are those who manage to achieve a balance between the intensity of their day-jobs and the tranquility of family life. And he practices what he preaches.

“I went away with the family last Saturday night to Loch Lomond, and I just spent the weekend with them,” he said.

“There is more to life in Scotland than football, and I’m the type of guy who when I have that need to switch off, I switch off.

“Since I was at university I’ve had this workaholic rhythm. I was the type of guy who would study to two in the morning, but since I’ve been in Scotland, I’m in my bed at 10 o’clock, I can’t do that anymore.

“I’m up early though, 5 or half past 5 in the morning, and I start planning and organising everything, and to be focused on my work.

“I realise I need that balance, and when I realise that I am too tired to take anything from what I am doing, I stop, close the store, go home and get on again early in the morning."

But surely, as the holder of one of the highest-profile jobs in Scotland, it must be hard for him to find peace here, in public at least?

“I don’t find it more claustrophobic here, it depends how you live," he said. "I have my own routines. I am a guy of methods and routines, so I just try to follow that.

“If you are focused on the essential and not the unnecessary, that’s my way of seeing things.

“If you get worried and take more instruments than your own instruments then maybe the music you are going to listen to is not going to be the best, so just focus and keep going, and when you need to stop, do so and enjoy it.”

This mantra is playing on Caixinha’s mind as he ponders the prospect of taking his players away during the November international break.

With a trip to Florida already lined up for the winter shutdown, he is wary of overloading his players.

“It depends on how we are going,” he said. “If we have the need for some guys we might play a friendly. But, too much water can ruin the plants.

“If we have data that tells us it would be better for the boys to have a break we will give them a break.”