MORTON manager Jonatan Johnasson says Thursday's closed-door friendly against Rangers was a good chance to see some of his fringe players in action.

Some of the youngsters in the squad were playing for the Ton in a bounce game at the Hummel Training Centre.

With no game this weekend, the manager was keen to get his players some game time, especially the squad members who haven’t featured as much this season.

With it being international week, most of Rangers’ first team were away with their respective countries, but Johansson says it was a good workout against Steven Gerrard’s side.

He told the Tele: “We played a game and it was good to see the young players and the other players mixing in and it gave me a chance to see some of the players that have been on loan that I haven’t seen as much of.”

One man that wasn’t there however was Peter Houston.

The Ton assistant, who is also the number two for the Scotland Under-21s, is out in Kiev as the youngsters prepared to take on Ukraine, before hosting England on Tuesday.

But Johansson said it has had little effect on training, with the pair in constant contact while he has been away on international duty.

He added: “We’re in daily contact with each other, the time difference with Ukraine is a couple of hours but we’ve been talking, we know what we’re doing in training and today with technology you can watch the clips and the games separately and we’ve been in constant contact.”