This article was written for Scottishfootball.info by Josh Duncan, an aspiring sports writer, who has his own Substack account that you can follow. Please follow him there and on X.com - where you can find more of his threads in the coming months.

His previous writing for the website includes a well-received tactical analysis of Falkirk F.C this season. Josh’s latest article will be the first in a series of ‘squad building’ exercises, looking specifically at Rangers F.C.

After the climax of this crazy Scottish Premiership season, Rangers will be faced with an all too familiar situation in the summer. After sacking the sporting director and CEO in November 2025, the new ownership seemingly admitted that most of the decisions made at the club last year - especially in recruitment - were a mistake. It’s therefore reasonable to conclude that the club are likely in for yet another summer rebuild.

Regardless of the quality of the squad, it is clear that changes will need to be made to prepare for a full season under Danny Röhl. Much of the current squad was recruited for Russell Martin and that will need to be rectified. There are also a considerable amount of loan players in the squad, who will need to be replaced in some way.

This summer will be the first major test of the clubs new committee style transfer strategy. This is how the club restructured its recruitment process after the sacking of Kevin Thelwell, operating in this way during the January window. This time however, they will have had more time to better prepare for the summer window.

I thought it would be an interesting exercise to explain how I would go about transitioning this squad. Explaining how I would build through each position group and giving transfer targets; talking through the process for each one. One of the biggest clubs in Scotland have struggled to build a sustainable core of players for several years now - but I’m sure that I can fix everything in a few articles!

The opening article of this series will focus on explaining my overall thoughts on building the squad. As well as an explanation of the scouting process and how I will use data to inform those decisions. I will conclude by giving my goalkeeping targets.

Squad Building

The first step in building the squad is obviously looking at what you already have. For the purpose of this series, there will have to be some assumptions here, and I will discuss these for each position in turn. I will be trying to explain what I think Rangers should do with the squad, while keeping things as realistic as I can.

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The above is the Rangers squad for the title run-in. The 27-man squad includes six loan players who will need replacing, especially given four of the nine defenders are loanees (Meghoma, Cornelius, Djiga and Aarons). Additionally, there are a few contracts about to expire for which decisions will need to be made. Then we have loan players returning from other clubs - although a few of them I expect will be candidates for sale.

We will be building for Danny Röhl’s style of play, which focuses on counter pressing and direct attacks. So as much as we want to find good players, they must also be a fit for the style or at least have potential to develop the necessary skills.

The goal will be to have a squad that has quality over quantity, targeting specific profiles for each position. This may mean a thinner squad but this will afford opportunities for academy players to form the depth. The use of utility players like Dujon Sterling will supplement the squad as well. Adding a bit of experience will be needed as well, given the average age of the squad.

This is the foundation I will be working from to begin with. There are definitely a few areas that may be confusing at first viewing. The squad having 3 players who are due to be out of contract is one of them, while there are several players I believe should be sold.

As we go through each position group, I will explain my thought process behind which players should stay and which should leave.

Some of the players that I advocate for being sold are interchangeable. What’s more important is freeing up the spaces at each position. We want to build a new core that fits Röhl’s system. Plus it would be no fun doing this and only changing 3 or 4 players!

Scouting and Data Usage

When you see scouting online, it is generally very data focused. The use of data is a massive part of modern football but relying on it entirely to make decisions would be a mistake. Often you see a lot of conclusions made about players purely from data or specific stats; this is something we want to avoid.

For each different position, we want to define a profile that encompasses everything a player needs to have for that specific role. This means figuring out technical qualities required to perform these roles, as well as looking at age and physical traits.

Once we have each profile, this is when the data becomes useful. We can set data parameters to identify players who have the traits we need. Once these players have been identified, we can learn as much as possible about them and decide who is the best option.

The way we gain information is by watching as many games as possible from each player. This gives us an understanding of their qualities in many different settings. You can also learn a lot of things that won’t show in the data, as well as gaining context on the data itself.

After all of this, I will present a couple of targets at each position, with an explanation of the data and some video analysis as well. Multiple targets at each position gives us options in terms of building the squad. Each group will end with my conclusion on which target is best and a discussion about how they fit into the overall squad.

Now that we have in idea of how everything will work, we can see it in action by looking at the first position in the team; the goalkeepers.

Goalkeeping Situation

The Rangers goalkeeping situation is a bit awkward heading into this summer. Jack Butland is entering the final year of his contract, while Liam Kelly and Kieran Wright both have their contracts ending this year.

Butland has been very hit and miss throughout his time at the club. At his best he can make some great saves but his worst has seen some costly howlers. His handling and positioning have both been suspect and his ability with the ball at his feet can be poor for a modern keeper.

With one year left on his deal, trying to move him on would be best for the club, in my opinion. He will be 34 by the end of his current contract and while it would be easier than finding a replacement, committing more years to him as the number one is risky.

Liam Kelly has been a serviceable backup, as well as contributing to the homegrown rules in UEFA competition. Extending his contract to keep some continuity in the goalkeeper group feels like a smart move. He is perfectly good enough for the cup games and giving the no.1 a rest.

Finally, the third spot has been occupied by 26-year old Kieran Wright for a while now. I think it’s time to give this position to academy talent. Bringing through young goalkeepers for some first team training experience and maybe some cup minutes could be beneficial for the club long-term.

Goalkeeper Profile

So, if we’re replacing the number one goalkeeper, what are we looking for in that replacement?

The first thing we want is reliability. The inconsistency in form for Jack Butland is something we want to avoid. You may get less incredible saves but a goalkeeper who stops all the ‘shots he should save’ is the baseline. Goalkeepers are the most difficult position to measure statistically, but we will still use data to help us find candidates.

To help here we will be using the Goals Prevented statistic, which is based on xGOT (Expected Goals On Target). This measures how well goalkeepers are handling shots based on the chance quality and execution. Like with xG, the higher the number the better.

I looked at goalkeepers who had a goals prevented measured at more than 0, both accumulated and per 90 minutes. This allows us to see some options who are performing at least as well as expected.

For the rest of the profile, things are a bit more simple. We want a keeper young enough to develop, but with decent first team experience. So I looked at options aged 26 and under, who have at least two seasons with over 1,000 minutes played.

Next we want our goalkeeper to be strong in the air; having someone who can claim balls into the box and end the threat is key. So we’re looking at keepers who are 6’2 or taller and who have above average aerial duels p90. This won’t tell us how good their decisions are in the air but it gives us a starting point to find an aggressive keeper.

Finally, we want someone who is more confident with the ball at their feet. We aren’t looking for a Manuel Neuer regen here but we do want someone who can play from the back with comfort, while being able to pick out teammates with longer passes. I looked at goalkeepers with over 30 passes p90 and with an 85% or higher accuracy on those passes.

The Targets

After using the profile to narrow down potential targets, I ended up looking further into about 14 different goalkeepers. I watched a few full matches from each of them and decided on two potential targets that I thought would fit well.

Nikolas Polster

Nikolas Polster is a 23 year old Austrian goalkeeper, playing for Wolfsberger AC in the Austrian Bundesliga. Standing at 6’2, he is a decent size for a goalkeeper while still having agility and speed of foot.

After a mixed bag to start out his time at Wolfsberger, this season he has settled into solid form. Accumulating over 2 prevented goals so far this season, according to Wyscout. Now entering the final year of his contract, I believe has has a lot of the skills necessary to be Rangers next goalkeeper. With rumoured interest from Brighton and Rapid Wien in January, there might be some competition for his services.

Polster is a solid shot stopper, there are some areas he excels in and a couple parts of his game that he can develop. These strengths and weaknesses are revealed in the clips above.

In close angled shots his positioning is excellent, he covers the near post while staying ready to get down quickly. His decision making when deciding between saving with his hands or feet is very good.

He is quick and decisive when coming off his line and understands his angles. Because of this he is strong in 1v1 situations. He is also very solid with ranged attempts and will generally save everything you’d expect him to.

His biggest weakness comes from parrying. He will generally deal with first attempt but when saving with his hands, Polster often parries the ball back into danger. In fairness, he rarely seems to get help from his defence in these situations - but it is a weakness. In the set of clips, I have included a couple of the goals conceded from this issue.

The only other consistent issue is his reaction to back post crosses. Sometimes Polster gets really tight to the near post side when defending a cross; when he has to shift across his goal, he arrives too late for a back post shot.

Polster’s best attributes are his handling and aerial ability. He makes quick decisions on balls in the air and is great when he gets there. Polster shows great strength when contesting for catches in the air and almost never drops them, even when fouled.

His instincts when choosing between catching and punching are really good as well. The number of times he alleviates pressure for his team in this way is fantastic. You can see some of these moments in the clips above.

His distribution is another strength, he is comfortable with both feet and varies his passing choices a lot. He has the confidence to put his foot on the ball and bait a press, then has the skill to play passes into it. His long passing is solid on both feet as well; he rarely launches the ball aimlessly, preferring to try and pick someone out.

Jari De Busser

Jari De Busser is a 26 year old Belgian goalkeeper who plays for Go Ahead Eagles in the Eredivisie. He is slightly taller than Polster at 6’3 and is extremely strong, he is also particularly agile for his size.

Like Polster, there is only one year left on De Busser’s contract. This makes him a prime candidate to move club this summer, with links to Feyenoord and Lorient of late.

The Belgian is a genuinely fantastic shot stopper. His performance in the final of last years KNVB Beker final carried GAE to their first trophy since 1933. This performance included some remarkable saves as well as saving 3 penalties. The selection of clips above are some of his best stops in a GAE jersey.

You can see in these clips how he stays low in his stance. Allowing him to react quickly and get down to shots in time. From this position he also generates good power in his legs to spring up to higher shots.

De Busser shows strong awareness of his positioning and understands his angles well. He also makes himself really big when closing down 1v1s, and his strong body control allows him to make saves with his legs as well.

His handling and Aerial skills are a bit more of a mixed bag. With his strength and size there is clear upside in this area but his decision making can be lacking. This inconsistency is outlined in the clips above.

When he goes for contested catches he generally wins them but too often he backs out and decides to punch. This leads to a lack of conviction and poor punches which gives the opponent chances to score.

If he can gain more confidence to use his physicality and claim the ball more often, this will improve his game considerably. Goalkeepers have a different ageing curve to the rest of football which leaves ample time for him to develop.

His distribution is also a bit inconsistent and much more one footed than Polster. Firstly, De Busser is really good when playing the ball on the ground and so his play out from the back is solid. He can play through pressure and is happy to take the ball in dangerous positions.

His long passing is slack however. Too often his passes sail way over the intended target. He does clear the ball with intention to find teammates though. In a team like Rangers who want to be direct, he may improve this skill.

Conclusion

There isn’t a lot that separates the two keepers. Polster is three years younger but the age difference isn’t as much of a factor at this position and they both make up for their deficiencies in different ways.

If we were going for system fit then I would say Polster is the better option. His skills with direct passing would benefit Danny Röhl’s style of play. His aerial ability is also a bonus in a physical league.

However, the goalkeeper is the position which I would assign the least value for system fit. Even in the modern game, the first job of a goalkeeper is to stop goals. Prioritising the player with the higher floor seems best to me here.

This is why I would choose Jari De Busser as Rangers number 1 goalie next season.

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This article was written for Scottishfootball.info by Adam Bortkiewicz, a Rangers fan and online sports writer, who has his own Rangers blog you can follow.

If you don’t want to receive Rangers or Celtic specific emails, you can ‘toggle’ off notifications from the “Rangers” or “Celtic” sections in your account settings, without having to unsubscribe from all emails.

If you would like to write about your team for www.ScottishFootball.info, please get in touch for a chat.

Good evening all, Rangers are back in Europe again, sadly the games did not finish with our loss in Budapest, we have more torture to endure. But maybe tomorrow night can be different?

Not a Dead Rubber

There are many things about how the coefficient works that I cannot explain. That is why my blog is about Rangers and our generous host for this article has a blog dedicated to the topic. He is the expert.

I’m not sure of the exact permutations, but I’ve read that Olympiakos winning on Tuesday means that our potential automatic Champions League qualification for winning the league is in jeopardy.

Have a read of the “Rangers” section in the preview below to get more detail on how it all works. I’m sure my colleague can explain things in more detail!

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UEFA Coefficient Weekly Preview

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3 months ago · 11 likes · Scotland's Coefficient

But suddenly, there is pressure on Rangers to get a result in tomorrow’s game and potentially the last group game. I’m going to try and not get ahead of myself with the doom and gloom though.

Money’s Worth

Despite our status as already being eliminated from potential progression to the next stage of the competition, tomorrow is important.

Danny Röhl hasn’t won a game in Europe for Rangers, and he will want to change that.

We have good momentum in the team after a strong run of results. There’s no need to jeopardise that by losing a winnable game at home.

The fans pay a lot of money to come watch their team play and they absolutely deserve to see a proper battling performance and win in Europe.

All those reasons seem fairly obvious, but it’s surprising to me the amount of fans desperate for the manager to rotate and sacrifice the game.

Underdog Story

Tomorrow’s opponents have only been in the European football conscious since about 2010. They started winning the league following some investment and they started poking their nose into Europe.

I first remember hearing about them when they managed a heroic UCL play-off win to qualify for the competition for the first time in 2015.

Ludogorets were heading to a penalty shootout against Steaua Bucharest when their goalkeeper was shown a red card. With no subs left, they had to move centre back Cosmin Moți between the sticks.

Astonishingly, the makeshift keeper stepped up, slotted his penalty before saving two from the opposition and sending the Bulgarians into the Champions League.

Since then, the side have bobbed between the various tiers of European competition without leaving too strong of an impression.

Much the same as this season, although they currently hold a play-off position, sitting in 23rd place on 7 points. Although if that isn’t making an impression, what have Rangers been doing?

A quick glance at their record shows that they are capable of beating the teams around and below them, without leaving too much of a mark in games against the teams near the top.

System wise, this is a team that rotate between a few systems but generally maintain a similar shape. 5 players in midfield with 1 forward.

I expect that shape will look more compact at Ibrox tomorrow, despite our horrendous European form, teams don’t take a visit to Rangers lightly.

From a quick glance at the visiting squad… I know none of the players, so I’m not much help there either. However, it’s not hard to see who the main goal threats are for the Bulgarian champions, Peter Stanic and Iyaylo Chochev have a monstrous 10 and 15 goals from midfield respectively. That means whoever we have starting in midfield will have a big job on their hands dealing with late arrivals into the box and any space on the edge of the area.

In sharp contrast, the four listed centre forwards for the visitors have a combined 5 goals in 42 appearances. Perhaps they’d like a lend of one of our misfiring strikers? They have a few Brazilians on the books already so I’m sure Danilo would feel right at home.

What is notable, is that the Bulgarians sit 3rd in their domestic league. 7 points off of 1st place. As the current champions and dominant side of this era, that’s unusual.

I suspect Ludogorets’ league position will be their biggest concern. You may think that means we might see a weakened side arrive at the stadium tomorrow.

No such luck, the Bulgarian league doesn’t resume until 7th February. Sadly that means the game tomorrow will be seen as a chance to put a marker down for supporters and show them that they aren’t done fighting for the badge.

I enjoy this real sense of the unknown with Ludogorets, knowing everything before kick off is boring.

The Home Front

The manager addressed the press earlier and had some interesting revelations.

First of all, John Souttar is out, allegedly he will be back on Monday and that is good news given his initial prognosis. It’s hard to see that as good news given I didn’t actually know he was injured in the first place.

It comes at an okay time with Nasser Djiga firmly back from AFCON and Dujon Sterling making his triumphant return to training (admittedly he’s not fit enough for tomorrow either).

I’m trying to suppress shudders at the memories of Djiga’s performance at home to Braga, let’s hope that he’s shaken off those particular demons.

Cornelius is also back in training and “working hard” so the Canadian’s return must be on the horizon.

One thing that Danny Röhl made clear, is that he is very keen for more signings:

“I knock every day on the door of the recruitment and ask something new.”

This quote sparked an amusing image of the recruitment team diving under their desks and switching the lights off whenever they hear that the manager is in the building.

But it’s refreshing to hear a manager talk so openly about asking for more players and reinforcing the squad. It puts pressure on those above him and makes it clear to the fans exactly where he stands.

There was plenty of talk about the importance of continuing our run, and it’s clear that the manager echoes my thoughts on going strong:

“It’s also the reason why tomorrow we go with a strong starting lineup in this game, and hopefully we can continue on the weekend.”

It’s worth stating for the record that none of the new signings can play tomorrow. There was a suggestion that Skov Olsen and Tochi Chukwuani will be involved on Sunday though, which is great news, get them integrated as soon as possible.

Aside from that, there isn’t a huge deal to cover ahead of the game, plenty of transfer rumours have been swirling around the team, but I try not to address anything unless it has some weight to it.

Enjoy the game tomorrow if you are attending.

Follow Adam's Rangers Blog

This article was written for Scottishfootball.info by Adam Bortkiewicz, a Rangers fan and online sports writer, who has his own Rangers blog you can follow.

If you don’t want to receive Rangers or Celtic specific emails, you can ‘toggle’ off notifications from the “Rangers” or “Celtic” sections in your account settings, without having to unsubscribe from all emails.

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Good evening all, it’s another European game and another chance for me to welcome my readers from the Scotland’s Coefficient side of the house. All support and readership is massively appreciated.

What’s the point?

Beyond the obvious answer that I actually like seeing Rangers win games of football, most people probably wouldn’t be able to tell you if there’s much point in Rangers winning tomorrow’s game.

Qualification is certainly a touch more than unlikely at this stage, the table makes for grim reading.

If we are being honest, it’s almost certain that Rangers can’t qualify from their current position. Winning our last three games is a tall order, and even then there would be no guarantee.

A real depressing way to start things off, but for a shot of optimism, I’m looking at the stuttering form of GNK Dinamo and FC Basel and starting to dream, maybe we just need a few more slip ups from them and a perfect run from Rangers (and the teams between us not picking up anymore points).

The Green and White Enemy

To move away from the bigger picture, we can talk about tomorrow’s opponents.

That doesn’t make for much better reading.

Ferencvaros sit top of their league by 2 points after 16 games. More worryingly for Rangers though, they sit just 1 point off the top of the Europa League table. They are unbeaten and have 11 points after 5 games.

Unlike Rangers, they have plenty to play for and will be desperate to add another 3 points to their tally and get closer to cementing a place in the top 8. Remember Rangers did that last season? Great memories compared to now.

If there is a slight silver lining here, it’s that the home side have had a much easier fixture list than some of the teams around them.

Both Plzeň and Fenerbahçe have fallen to Rangers’ sword recently. So it’s curious that those two fixtures were drawn by the Hungarians. The three wins aren’t against poor teams by any means (we’ve all seen Genk play after all) but it’s not the glittering fixture list of a team punching above their weight and sinking the big hitters in the competition.

The eagle-eyed amongst you will have spotted that the side from Budapest favour a three at the back shape. I can’t tell if the back three is back in vogue or I’m experiencing a frequency illusion since Danny Röhl started deploying the shape at Rangers.

I’ve not had alot of time to do the kind of in-depth research I normally do for the European previews. So I apologise!

There’s a recognisable name in midfield in the form of Naby Keita. The former Liverpool and Leipzig midfielder is a very technical player and although he hasn’t played as many minutes as he would have liked this season, there’s no doubting his quality.

The name on the home fans lips will be Barnabás Varga. The striker is prolific and has notched 20 goals in each of his last three seasons, and is already on 19 in this campaign.

He has three goals in five Europa League games this season and there’s a good chance he will be licking his lips looking at our occasionally leaky defence.

I’ve been suggesting we match up with teams that employ a back three. But it’s very clear that our manager isn’t interested in adopting that shape while he’s missing centre backs.

Under Robbie Keane, Ferencvaros have become a formidable team. Their domestic form isn’t a surprise but the European results are very impressive.

At home they will have no fear, and they shouldn’t. We’ve seen this team wilt in intimidating atmosphere, and that’s exactly what we can expect in Budapest.

A Boon?

From the Rangers perspective, there was some positive news on the squad front. Mohammed Diomande (not involved tomorrow due to suspension) has not been called up by the Ivory Coast national team for the African Cup of Nations.

There’s no denying that Diomande has had some mixed form this season. But we aren’t in a position to be turning down any bodies at the moment.

You’d suspect that with his 2 goals the other night that Bojan Miovski will keep his place. We’ve finally found a way to get him more involved and there’s no point in disrupting that momentum.

Him getting his first European goal for Rangers would be a great way to continue that improvement and momentum.

Tomorrow will be a different challenge for the Macedonian though. I don’t expect us to have much of the ball so our number 28 will be tasked with maximising his impact with the ball when he does have it.

I was impressed by the number of touches and his involvement on Saturday. That has to continue for this game. It goes without saying that we will need him to be prolific when the chances arrive at his feet.

Part of me thinks that the manager will go for Aarons over Meghoma for this game. Aarons is the slightly more senior of the two left sided options, and I think is slightly more defensively astute than Meghoma. Although there isn’t much in it. My worry with that selection is that it means we have a fullback who will look to turn backwards with the ball, on a night when we won’t have many opportunities to get forward.

A player who may come in from the start is Mikey Moore. He showed on Saturday exactly the sort of impact that we wanted when we signed the Englishman on loan.

Much like our game at Easter Road, a tough European away fixture is the kind of scenario that we will require Moore’s ability to carry the ball forward under pressure. The 17-year-old will want to take risks and drive at goal when he can, but tomorrow is when the manager might ask him to be more conservative to allow the team to breathe a little.

Raskin and Barron will have a lot of responsibility too, we will be asking them to hold the ball under significant pressure, cover a lot of ground, and look to play forward when they can. Raskin has been quietly improving his form in recent games, Barron has been a constant source of energy in the midfield. I think they are up to the task.

Aside from that, there’s not too much more to say. I hope we can improve and get a win, but it’s a big ask given the current European form.

Follow Adam's Rangers Blog

This article was written for Scottishfootball.info by Adam Bortkiewicz, a Rangers fan and online sports writer, who has his own Rangers blog you can follow.

If you don’t want to receive Rangers or Celtic specific emails, you can ‘toggle’ off notifications from the “Rangers” or “Celtic” sections in your account settings, without having to unsubscribe from all emails.

If you would like to write about your team for www.ScottishFootball.info, please get in touch for a chat.

Rangers are returning to Europa League action with another home fixture. This time we welcome the Portuguese club SC Braga to Ibrox stadium. Fans will be more than a little bit familiar with this set of opponents.

History

I don’t need to remind any current readers of our previous meetings with SC Braga, but I love a trip down memory lane so I will anyway.

Back in 2019/20, Steven Gerrard’s second season at the club, we faced tomorrow’s opponents for the first time, a young Ruben Amorim in the dugout, drawing them in the round of 32 of the Europa League (as it was known back then).

In what was to become a theme, the home game was a far more frenetic and fast paced affair than the away leg.

Playing on maybe the worst Ibrox pitch in recent memory, Rangers toiled for the first 60 minutes of the match. Despite a strong atmosphere provided by the home fans.

In just over 10 minutes Rangers were a goal down to a stupendous swerving effort from distance by Fransérgio, the Braga captain.

Alfredo Morelos missed a few presentable chances to level the scores. 29 goals to his name by that point, he wouldn’t get any more that season.

Braga punished those misses by going 2-0 up through Abel Ruiz after a neat move saw him collect a back heel and reverse his finish across the body of Allan McGregor from the edge of the area.

We were certainly in doom and gloom territory by this stage. It looked like getting even worse when the visitors raced in on goal in a counter attack. But as he did so many times for Rangers, Allan McGregor made an excellent save to keep the score at 2-0.

It looked an even bigger save when about 5 minutes later, the ball found Ianis Hagi in space on the right. The Romanian, freshly signed on loan from Genk in January, cut inside and arrowed a finish in off the inside of the near post.

The ball was collected and returned to the halfway line, Ibrox was rocking and everyone could feel the magic in the air.

Borna Barišić was lost to injury afterwards, but rather than introducing a defensive minded player for the Croatian left back. Gerrard opted to move Joe Aribo to left back.

It turned out to be a touch of genius, as the Nigerian would collect the ball on the left, then combine with Hagi before coming inside, sitting down the Braga defence and slotting the ball past the keeper.

2-2 seemed a great result given how the first 65 minutes of the game had gone for Rangers, most would have taken it.

Not Ianis Hagi.

With 10 or so minutes left, Rangers’ number 7 stood over a free kick about 30 yards out. Instead of delivering into the area, he went for goal, and with a fortunate deflection off the wall wrong footing the keeper, it sailed into the back of the net.

Pandemonium, I know you will want to relive those memories yourself, so here are the highlights:

It also spawned the oft quoted phrase from Ianis Hagi in his post match interview.

“Ibrox, baby! It’s just different!”

The away leg produced one of the best defensive performances in the Gerrard era, as Rangers were compact and relaxed under pressure from Braga. The tie was sealed when Ryan Kent was sent through on goal and coolly finished past the keeper to make it 4-2 on aggregate to Rangers.

Rangers also met Braga on the road to Seville. A scrappy away leg ended one nil to the home side.

But if there’s one thing that Braga know about playing Rangers, it’s that Ibrox is just different, baby.

Rangers wasted no time restoring parity on aggregate as a Barišić cross was flicked to the back post by Aribo for the onrushing James Tavernier. He finished well from a tight angle, as he did time and time again in that magical run.

It looked like Rangers already had the lead in the tie when Roofe headed home a Borna cross, but the goal was disallowed for a handball in the build-up.

Rangers didn’t feel sorry for themselves though, a brilliant long ball from Calvin Bassey found Kemar Roofe in behind. The English-born Jamaican international was clever and got his body in front of the defender who promptly took him down. A penalty and a red card. Rangers were in dreamland.

Tavernier made no mistake from the spot and Rangers were already imagining a place in the Europa League semi-final.

Roofe had a goal disallowed for offside and several presentable chances were passed up by Rangers.

They were made to pay for this profligacy when Braga levelled the aggregate scores with a great goal from a corner.

Nerves set in as we went into extra time. Surely Rangers couldn’t throw away such a brilliant European run against the weakest opponent (on paper)?

Turns out they couldn’t, an Aribo cross found it’s way across the box and Kemar Roofe finally had his goal.

Braga understandably wilted in extra time (not helped by another red card for dissent), just in time for Scott Arfield to miss a hilariously easy chance to put the game to bed fully. Thankfully he was saving his goal for the game that weekend as Rangers came from a goal behind to dump Celtic out of the Scottish Cup at Hampden.

What about now?

I hope we all enjoyed reliving those magical Ibrox nights. I certainly did!

We can’t win a football match with great memories though, sadly.

This current iteration of Braga sit 7th in the Liga Portugal. 14 points off first place after 11 games.

They’ve fared far better in Europe, progressing through 3 rounds of qualifying comfortably and winning 3 of 4 league phase games so far. Their only loss being a 4-3 home loss in the round of fixtures against Genk. Braga have already won in Glasgow this season, having turned over Celtic at Parkhead by 2 goals to nil and never really looked troubled.

Braga are actually higher in the Europa League table than any side we’ve faced so far, sitting in 5th on goal difference.

Braga’s squad is a nice mix of exciting young player like Pau Víctor (signed from Barcelona for 12m euros), Mario Dorgeles (signed from FC Nordsjaelland for 11m euros) and Gabriel Moscardo (on loan from PSG).

The Portuguese have supplemented this youth with experienced heads like Ricardo Horta, 31 and played against Rangers in both previous ties, and João Moutinho, 39 and has played for Sporting CP, Porto, Monaco and Wolves.

Stylistically, the visitors favour a 3-4-2-1 formation, which Rangers should be used to seeing given they largely operate in a 3-5-2/3-4-2-1 shape under Danny Röhl.

The front 3 is fluid and is very capable of popping up in areas all over the final third. If you look at the positioning of the Braga attackers for Ricardo Horta’s opener from distance against Celtic, Horta (21) was nominally on the left of the front three but he’s dropped into the space on the right to pick up the ball. Another member of the front three, Pau Víctor (just out of shot on the left) has dropped into the wide areas to support wing backs efforts to get inside. On the far side you can Yanis Da Rocha, the right sided wing-back, making his way into the box on the right. Alongside Horta in that space in front of the defence is one of the centre midfielders, Gorby (29).

Celtic struggled to deal with the rotations and movement of the Braga attack. I would imagine that Danny Röhl will be focusing on maintaining a solid back 3 shape that maintains it’s position to allow the midfielders to move with the Braga attack.

Sadly, Rangers lack any real pace in the current side, as that is one of the weaknesses of this Braga side defensively.

As a consequence of having such a fluid attack skilled in rotations, when they surrender the ball they are extremely vulnerable to transitions. From looking at some clips this season, most of the goals they have conceded while deploying their 3-4-2-1 shape (against Genk they went for a 4-3-3) have come in transition and teams being able to isolate any of their defenders in a 1 v 1.

He’s obviously been fairly inconsistent of late, but with that in mind I’d expect to see Djeidi Gassama deployed in the front three of Rangers. We should be looking to get the ball into the forwards quickly and have Gassama standing up the Portuguese defenders.

Is it all for nothing?

The other school of thought is that after deploying a back 4 at the weekend due to the available personnel, the manager will do the same here. Despite the potentially makeshift nature of the back 3, I’d suggest that we start with the 3-4-2-1 shape we’ve become accustomed to.

Our goal has to be to maintain some solidity against the tricky opposition attack and then taking advantage of the opportunities available in transition.

We aren’t a squad capable of taking the fight to superior teams technically, even at home, we’ve seen that illustrated on many occasions this season. We have 0 Europa League points for a reason.

It feels quite depressing to be so pessimistic about Rangers chances to hurt Braga outside of transition. But we’ve seen such little evidence of us being a good attacking unit this season that I can’t really say anything else.

The club will be reeling internally after the double sacking on Monday, which I covered, and you can access that article below.

Near and Far

Thelwell and Stewart sacked: Goodbye and Thanks for all the Fish

Afternoon all, as announced by Rangers literally a minute before I started writing this, the club have parted company with Kevin Thelwell and Patrick Stewart…

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5 months ago · 2 likes · Adam Bortkiewicz

That turmoil shouldn’t affect the squad of players we have on the pitch. Well apart from Youssef Chermiti, who is presumably distantly related to Kevin Thelwell given the latter’s propensity for signing him for exorbitant sums of money.

There has been some suggestion that Röhl was pushing for the sacking of his superiors, swiftly shedding the “yes man” reputation some had given him before his appointment.

Hopefully that attitude is rewarded with investment in January and we can see what the manager can really do without being hamstrung with an inept squad.

It’s hard to feel very optimistic for tomorrow given the performances across the Europa league fixtures so far.

At the very least, going off past fixtures against Braga at Ibrox, we are in for a treat in terms of entertainment.

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This article was written for Scottishfootball.info by Adam Bortkiewicz, a Rangers fan and online sports writer, who has his own Rangers blog you can follow.

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Rangers sit on 0 points after 3 Europa League games, there’s shades of the start to our Europa League campaign in Gerrard’s last season at the club. Can we hope for a similar turnaround?

The Ibrox Colosseum

Tomorrow’s game really represents the last chance saloon for Rangers. It really does feel like we are a gladiator thrown into the Colosseum in Rome.

We have nothing to lose, the crowd is baying for entertainment, and anything less than victory and we are dead in the sand.

Hopefully there’s anger in the squad after the manner of the defeat on Sunday. The manager needs to harness that and start building a siege mentality. This squad will need to fight and scrap for even the slightest sniff of a point, that is the hand we have been dealt and as such we will need a real “us against the world” outlook before things start to change.

It would have been great if we were playing someone other than Roma at Ibrox to try and make that happen. But you can’t write off games at this club, so this has to be seen as an opportunity to lay a marker down.

The Invading Force

Tomorrow’s opponents aren’t the dysfunctional side that we’ve seen in recent years, this is a team firing and full of confidence thanks to manager Gian Piero Gasperini (formerly of Atalanta).

If anyone watched Gasperini’s Atalanta side regularly, you will know that his teams are intense, play with a lot of rotations and aren’t afraid to take risks to break down teams.

Most will remember his team dismantling Liverpool at Anfield on the way to their Europa League win over Bayer Leverkusen in 2024. He knows how to get his teams playing football.

Curiously, his Roma side aren’t quite as exciting on paper, in the league they’ve only won one match by more than a single goal and have been involved in games containing only one goal on 7 occasions (of 10 games played).

A quick look at some of these games will tell you that it’s profligacy in front of goal that’s holding the Romans back. They create a large amount of chances per game but consistently struggle to make these opportunities count. That’s slightly worrying, most teams who play like that just need a defensively insecure opponent to get things going…

System wise, the Italians deploy a variety of 3-at-the-back formations. Generally they maintain a very narrow front line and use the wing-backs to attack areas on the outside.

In terms of weaknesses, this is a team that have struggled against teams that have matched them up in formation terms and asked the side from the capital to think out of the box to score.

It may seem like I am talking down Roma overall, but they are currently embroiled in a brutal 4 way title race in Serie A. They are 4th on goal difference behind Milan and Inter, with champions Napoli leading the way by a single point.

From a Rangers perspective let’s hope that means Roma will have one eye on the league and may not prioritise the Europa League. Perhaps we could see some rotation.

Speaking of, in terms of personnel the jewel of the Roman crown is Paulo Dybala. Thankfully for us, he’s injured and no one knows when he will be back. They have some recognisable names and threats like Angeliño, Tsimikas, Leon Bailey, Dovbyk and Evan Ferguson (also injured).

The side has a similar makeup to Atalanta sides of previous years, a few recognisable names surrounded by a cast of hard working individuals who make things tick.

The Germanic Approach

So that’s what Rangers can expect from the opposition, and what will Danny Röhl do to try and make sure tomorrow is less the Battle of Alesia and more the Battle of Teutoburg Forest (one for the history buffs).

I expect that the manager will continue with the back 3. Matching up against a team that man-mark so aggressively is risky but can yield very positive results.

You have to ask players to be brave on and off the ball, when receiving the ball deep, players need to be moving into wide areas to create space to play into the forwards. This would be the perfect game for Tavernier to play in the back 3 in my opinion. Having the captain’s passing and ability to drive into space with the ball will be crucial for disrupting the Roman press.

I’d like to see a change in the front line as Danilo has been a bright spark and recent games, I’d like to see him start up-front with Gassama and Antman. Aasgaard should have some time to cool off from his silly red card. Aarons and Meghoma will have to be our wing-backs.

Diomande and Raskin should continue in midfield and we can only hope both are brave in terms of receiving the ball under pressure.

The manager could elect to select a more conservative midfield 3, but that would maybe require selecting Joe Rothwell, who should be nowhere near the starting eleven after his performance on Sunday. Although he may elect to play Connor Barron over Antman/Gassama to give us a more structured 3 in midfield.

Carpe Diem

Getting a result against a strong Roma side is a big ask for Rangers and Danny Röhl.

The big asks keep coming for the young German, and I hope he can keep the squad motivated in the midst of a really tough run of games.

Hopefully the positives from Sunday’s performance can be the focus going into this Europa League game. The Hibernian game feels like a long time ago, but that was as committed a defensive performance as you could hope to see.

This squad is not at the level required to compete, we’ve known that all season. But getting a little bit extra out of each player and trying to punch up will need to be our main goal for the rest of the season.

January will be important, but I think many are vastly overestimating what kind of surgery we can perform on this team.

The only thing I hope we can learn about this squad is whether or not they are willing to make a fight out of the rest of this season, there were positives on Sunday, but if the players down tools tomorrow night then we will really be in for a long long season.

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Hello all, it’s time for Rangers to get back into European action, a few things have changed since last time.

New Röhls

The doom and gloom around Rangers has shifted, well, somewhat shifted. If “doom and gloom” is code for Russell Martin, then he has fully shifted.

For his replacement Rangers have appointed young German Danny Röhl as the new head coach. I published a detailed article on Rangers’ new manager yesterday, I’ve included the link below if you’d like to read it.

Heads will Röhl

Near and Far

Heads will Röhl

As Rangers announced yesterday afternoon, Danny Röhl has been appointed as the new Head Coach of Rangers Football Club. He signed a 2.5 year contract and becomes Rangers’ youngest ever permanent manager aged just 36. Knowing the stress this club can inflict, he will look like he’s in his 50s soon enough…

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6 months ago · 5 likes · Adam Bortkiewicz

One thing that I didn’t address in the above article is that tomorrow’s game will be Röhl’s first European game as a manager. He has plenty of European experience from his time as a coach, but taking the reigns is a different kettle of fish.

It’s also an away fixture rather than at home. Despite the misgivings some fans have over his appointment, I’m certain that there would be a very enthusiastic reception for the manager at Ibrox Stadium on a European night.

Europe is a big step for any player or manager. But given Röhl is a manager who is tactically flexible, preparing for a different kind of opponent should suit the German’s game-by-game approach.

However, the obvious issue here is that he has taken very few training sessions with the team, so I’m not sure what kind of game plan he can really introduce.

One thing that is clear from listening to the new head coach talk about his style of play, it requires a lot of high intensity sprints, as a result this needs careful load management to avoid injuries to players. A drastic change in physical style can mean that the team spends large spells of the game tired, this is worth the risk for the long term gain. It’s also important that you don’t sacrifice the physical standards for short term gain.

I mentioned in my article that Röhl is fond of a back 3/5 for certain games. Although playing away in Europe would potentially be the perfect game to employ this shape, given the aforementioned lack of time on the training pitch it could be a big risk to change things so soon into his tenure.

Röhl is also fond of a 4-2-3-1 shape that becomes a 4-4-2 out of possession and that would probably suit the personnel Rangers have available. This will allow Rangers to be compact in spells without the ball but maintain a strong front 4 when they obtain the ball.

I’ll speak in more detail about how that shape might work in Rangers favour after discussing the opposition.

Brann New Day

Tomorrow’s opposition hail from Bergen, Norway and will be familiar to St Mirren fans as they dumped them out of the Conference League qualifiers last year. They’ve improved since then and find themselves in the Europa League this season after dispatching AEK Larnaca and BK Hacken in the qualifiers.

They currently sit 3rd in the Eliteserien, 7 points off the top of the table with a game in hand. They are actually near the end of their domestic season as leagues in the Nordic regions run their season from March to November.

I imagine that means we are playing a team that’s very much fired up and preparing for the run-in, they will have one eye on the league as their game in hand is against Bodø/Glimt who sit in second place, 6 points ahead of Brann. Although Bodø/Glimt are also in European action this week.

SK Brann employ a 4-3-3 formation, something we are very used to seeing at Rangers. Interestingly their biggest attacking threat comes from fullback (sounds very familiar) in the form of Joachim Soltvedt. He is the clubs top assister with 10 this year, he also managed 3 goals.

From watching some clips of his contributions he’s got fantastic delivery from anywhere on the left and gets up and down the pitch constantly. He’s also the teams set piece taker (getting really familiar now) and provides quality delivery from there too.

Although he missed some games recently with injury he seems to be back fit for tomorrow’s game. The good news though, is that the home side are missing a few big names (relatively speaking).

Sævar Atli Magnússon was signed on a free transfer in July from Lyngby BK in Denmark. Nominally operating as a right winger, the Dane has had a tremendous impact in Norway with 10 goals in 16 appearances since his arrival (including a goal in each Europa League game so far). But, thankfully for Rangers, he picked up a knee injury while on international duty and is expected to miss tomorrow’s game.

Felix Horn Myhre is another doubt for the game, I believe he will play though. He’s got 5 goals and 4 assists from central midfield this season and is the creative heartbeat of the team.

Niklas Castro is another wide threat with 5 goals and 4 assists this season despite limited minutes. He was forced off at the weekend with an injury so is another doubt for SK Brann.

Hopefully it’s a stroke of luck for the new manager at Rangers that there are a few top players missing for the opposition.

In terms of attacking play, it’s clear that the wingers are some of the key pieces in this team. Generally the striker is happy to drop deep and free up the space for the wide players to make direct runs inside and attack the area.

It’s hard to judge if this is something Rangers will find particularly difficult to deal with as truthfully they’ve found all kinds of attacking play extremely difficult to deal with this season.

In Too Deep

From a Rangers perspective, the key goal of the game should be to stay compact and restrict the space that the Brann wide players will have to run into. I imagine that will look like the two deepest midfielders dropping in front of the back 4 and making the central area very congested. There has to be a lot of trust in the back-line as the fullbacks will need to leave the wide men to be picked up by the centre backs once they run inside.

That kind of trust is hard to establish with such a short amount of time on the training pitch, but I imagine Röhl will be looking to establish principles on and off the ball before he looks to provide any deep tactical plans to follow.

Djeidi Gassama said that he sees Röhl as a “father figure” from their time together at Sheffield Wednesday. With that in mind I expect the Frenchman to be a key part of any counter attacking approach employed by Rangers tomorrow. Gassama’s pace and directness have been Rangers’ most useful tool in Europe so far, and I expect that will continue. He produced a goal from nothing in Austria against Sturm Graz, hopefully he will be given more building blocks than “nothing” by the new manager.

On paper, SK Brann aren’t as strong a side as Rangers, however on the basis of this season so far, that doesn’t really count for much on the pitch. I want to see Rangers approach this game with some intelligence, stay compact off the ball, work hard defensively, use the ball effectively to utilise the pace of Antman and Gassama when you have it.

Stick to that and Rangers might just pick up their first Europa League win of the campaign.

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Morning all, Rangers need a result in Austria or things are going to start looking really bleak in Europe for Russell Martin. It would be a great night for the tradition of Rangers European nights to come back in full swing.

Wounded

Most expected Rangers to win their first European home game of the season last week. Genk are obviously a good team but Rangers had home advantage and a very strong Europa League record behind them. This counted for nothing as ten-man Rangers never really got going in yet another game that passed the team by this season.

For anyone interested in more detailed thoughts on that performance, you can look here for my post-match write-up.

Despite the European loss, Rangers managed to string together two domestic wins in a row for the first time. Following up a 2-0 defeat of Hibs in the League Cup quarter final with their first league win, coming away at Livingston on Sunday.

Domestic Rangers and European Rangers have always been such different animals (aside from under Steven Gerrard) that it feels pointless to try and compare the results and performances here.

Sunday was a good show of resolve, and also featured a first half of passable football. But the level of resolve required and the type of football played will be different tonight.

The Hibs game had control without too much flair included. I expect that Rangers will struggle to establish any kind of control away in Austria given the quality of the opposition. Speaking of…

There’s a Storm Brewing

Austria was formerly a hot bed of football in Europe. We have to look back quite a ways to see when that was the case. But in the 30s Austria were considered a top footballing nation that most could learn from, players like Matthias Sindelar and Josef Bican (who would go on to play for Czechoslovakia after Austria, the rules weren’t as strict then) lit up the pitch and were part of this footballing revolution.

As a nation they were pioneers of the 2-3-5 system that was years ahead of it’s time and brought flair and flexibility to a sport that was often caught up in it’s formulaic ways. One of the most famous results of this era was a 5-0 drubbing of Scotland (at this point considered actually quite good) in 1931.

They say this footballing revolution started in the famous Austrian Coffee houses where discussion of football would lead to tactical changes and ideas. Indeed it’s often said that this coffee house conversation is a key part of Austrian culture and the average Austrian’s personality.

Sadly the world was robbed of seeing what the Austrian national team could become due to Hitler’s rise to power in 1933 and World War II. Indeed, Mathias Sindelar lost his life at the beginning of the conflict.

That was the last time that Austria was considered a super power in football. But in recent years we’ve seen the rise of some very formidable club sides within the nation. Rapid Vienna have been a constant presence in European competition in the 21st century. Thanks to Red Bull’s intervention, RB Salzburg have become a stepping stone for top European talent and UCL regulars.

In recent years we’ve seen the rise of tonight’s opponents, SK Sturm Graz. Although sporadically successful and consistently in the top flight, Sturm Graz have not had any kind of consistent dominance until recently.

Thanks to some shrewd recruitment and important sales, the home side have been Austrian Champions two years running and don’t look like slowing down despite a fairly heavy turnover in players season on season.

They are formidable as a side and have become a target for young players looking to get their big move. Former Motherwell loanee, Mika Biereth joined the club from Arsenal after a very strong loan spell saw him lift the league title. He wasn’t at the club for long and soon Monaco appeared to take the Dane to Monte Carlo for a fee of around 13 million Euros.

That kind of transfer puts teams on the radar of agencies around the world looking to get their clients big moves down the line.

It’s hard to pinpoint the makeup of this side, given the amount of changes to personnel, but under manager Jurgen Samuel they play a 4-4-2 diamond very consistently. I dread to make a prediction but I do think that one of the issues with a diamond is the wide areas, given the high positioning of our wingers under Russell Martin, this is something we can target and find Gassama and Antman early like we saw at Livingston on Sunday.

A potential sign of hope for Rangers is that Sturm Graz have lost 2 home games already this season, both in the league. Although one of these came against Rapid Vienna and may be expected, the loss against Austria Vienna (9th at the time) is a bigger red flag for supporters of the home side.

Austria Vienna set up in a 3 and looked to get the wing backs on the outside of Sturm Graz’s diamond, I’d suggest that we might emulate this approach with Tavernier tucking inside to form a 3 and allowing Meghoma and the wide men to attack around the outside.

Blue is the Colour

Overall, I’m not expecting much from tonight’s game from a Rangers perspective. The opposition also lost their first league phase game and will want to right that wrong in front of their home fans.

As it’s a Scottish team facing off against an Austrian side, it’s a massive game for coefficient purposes - as my patron here has explained in his preview for this week.

But I feel like Martin will have his eyes firmly on the league, he will view tonight as a “free hit” of sorts given the quality of opposition. That’s not how things work at Rangers, and we need to see the standards rise at this football club.

For our line-up I’m not sure what to expect upfront, Chermiti may be the choice given his physicality, but it seems like 6 and half a dozen between the two striking options. Neither have really impressed me during games if I’m being honest. Miovski has a goal against Hibs but his general play hasn’t really been up to scratch. Chermiti has been a bit chaotic but isn’t afraid to get in behind and get on the ball.

Aside from that I’m not expecting too many changes. No Diomande due to suspension but I’m not sure he’d have been put straight into the team anyway. Barron has the legs on Rothwell for a game like this too.

Back-line picks itself really.

I’m not feeling great about this game but I hope I can be proven wrong, I wasn’t optimistic for Malmö away last season and we won 2-0. Maybe we can see some surprise heroics tonight.

I hope so.

Thanks for reading, enjoy the game, safe travels to those going to Austria.

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This article was written for Scottishfootball.info by Adam Bortkiewicz, a Rangers fan and online sports writer, who has his own Rangers blog you can follow.

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Evening all, it’s time for Rangers to resume their European adventure. Let’s not worry about what happened last time, it certainly didn’t give me nightmares. We face a new challenge, although it’s also a Belgian team and I’ve heard they play similarly.

Ghosts of Clement Past

We face another club formerly managed by Philippe Clement in the form of KRC Genk.

My first encounter with Genk that I can remember was in 2011/12. They played Chelsea in the Champions League group stage, and much was made of the young team that played good football and managed to hold Chelsea to a score draw (although they lost 5-0 at Stamford Bridge, ouch).

If you look at the Genk lineup from that night there’s one name that stands out, Thomas Buffel. The former Rangers man joined Genk in 2009 and went on to play 388 times for the club until he departed in 2018.

Chelsea didn’t realise what an exciting talent they had in front of them though, and signed the number 14 instead. I wonder what happened to him?

Since that game, Genk have semi-regularly popped up in the early rounds of European competition. They haven’t been as consistent as Club Brugge, and in terms of their model they probably operate in the tier below our torturers from the previous round.

That’s matched up by the findings in ’s excellent piece on the Belgians. As always, I recommend reading if you want a truly in-depth look at the opposition, with no stone left un-turned.

The main news about Genk, is that they are in turmoil, not unlike ourselves. They sit 14th in the Belgian Pro league after 8 games played. The noise from the club is that tomorrow’s game and the derby at the weekend are essentially win or bust for the head coach Thorsten Fink.

I’d love to say that means we are licking our lips looking at this fixture, but we are hardly in better nick ourselves. I won’t need to remind any Rangers fans that our win at the weekend was our first in any competition since playing Alloa Athletic in the previous round of the league cup.

Given the game is taking place at Ibrox, I expect the pressure will be more weighted against Russell Martin with a baying home support expecting nothing less than a win. And even then, a win won’t be enough to rescue Martin’s reputation. But I’ll have more to say about Rangers later.

In terms of playing style, there’s similarities to previous opponents Club Brugge, although thankfully not with the same quality of player. This is a team that isn’t a crazy high energy pressing team, they keep a strong shape and want to hold the ball when they can and exploit the spaces using overloads across the pitch.

It should be a challenge for them to come to Ibrox and command the ball like they would expect to do at home, but that relies on Rangers being firm and confident holding the ball themselves.

Our pressing shape will need massive improvement from what we witnessed against Club Brugge. The gaps that were left from chasing the ball and the opposition players were easily exploited at Ibrox and away. I’m not against us committing to a high press, this is a team that have less quality than Brugge, but if that’s our approach, it will need some structure.

In terms of players, there’s one standout that I’ll cover shortly. But it should be noted that they’ve lost several starters in the summer window, so this will be a team still trying to figure out the best successors for those roles. Given their league form, it doesn’t seem to be going well thus far.

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The Anointed One

In the history of Greek Mythology there have been many young heroes blessed with divine purpose from birth that went onto achieve great things. Theseus, Perseus, Heracles (Hercules for the Romans and fans of the Disney film) and Jason.

There’s always a moment that puts these heroes on the map. For Theseus it was slaying the Minotaur. Perseus for taking the head of Medusa. Heracles for his twelve labours. Jason for retrieving the Golden Fleece.

At Hampden, in March, Scotland fans witnessed one of these moments in the flesh as Konstantinos Karetsas conquered the Scottish national team.

Aged just 17, the mercurial winger took on all comers, finding his way into the Scotland box seemingly at will, he scored a great goal but his greatest impact is the way he haunts the dreams of the far more experienced Scottish players that faced him that night.

Sometimes as a fan you can be genuinely astonished by a player, and I think most were that night. Making us all feel old and thinking about what we were doing at 17 instead of putting teams to the sword.

Video: BBC Scotland footage of Karetsas scoring at Hampden

It just so happens that the Greek demigod has a chance to perform in Scotland again, as he plays for KRC Genk.

I imagine most of us don’t watch Genk or the Greek national team regularly, so we don’t have the chance to see how Karetsas plays week-in week-out. Like a lot of young talents, the good performances are mythologised (see what I did there?) and the bad performances forgotten.

The truth is, despite his obvious talent, Karetsas will be as inconsistent as any young player. Top clubs in Europe wouldn’t be chasing him if they didn’t expect him to iron this out swiftly though. And the way he is trusted in men’s football despite his age tells you all about how he’s seen at his club.

I’m glad we are playing against him while his club is struggling and it’s early in the season, the prospect of facing a talent like him in a team playing well with plenty of football under his belt is truly terrifying.

A worry for Rangers is that Karetsas won’t face an experienced pro tomorrow, but 19-year-old Jayden Meghoma. That’s a key battle, and it’s a challenge for Meghoma to use a bit of ingenuity and patience when defending as I don’t think his physical attributes will help him much here.

Home Sweet Home

In theory, tomorrow’s fixture represents the return of a happy set of circumstances for Rangers in recent seasons. It’s a home game in the Europa League. Last season only Olympique Lyon and Fenebahce were able to win at Ibrox (Fenerbahce also lost the tie on penalties).

Normally part of this is how buoyed the team will be by the home crowd and vice versa. I struggle to see the atmosphere being as ferocious tomorrow.

Apathy levels are high given there’s plenty of unsold tickets still, and for the fans who will attend, I imagine the anger levels are at a similar stage.

Genk will be especially keen to keep the ball as that is a guaranteed way for the home crowd to get on the backs of the players.

Rangers need to counter this by starting fast, I don’t think we started particularly well on Saturday, but we did well to wrestle control of the match and once we got our goals, Hibs didn’t have much of a look in.

That has to be even better tomorrow, win the midfield battle and get the territory we need to play.

I expect we will see a very similar team if not the same as Saturday’s. If we feel like there will be more space in behind then I’d be tempted to start Antman over Moore on the right. The Finn’s runs in behind were excellent against Plzen at Ibrox and I expect there will be more space than in league games.

One player who won’t play a part will be Max Aarons. We’ve not seen him since his red card in Bruges. Perhaps rightly so, but the fact is, he will be with us until at least January. So at some stage we should look at reintegrating him into the team, just so he isn’t coming in from the cold if we ever require his services.

Cornelius and Souttar are a well balanced partnership at the back, and the Canadian’s passes into the left channel will be important in freeing up our European top-scorer, Djeidi Gassama. I thought we were able to isolate Gassama against the fullback much more often on Saturday, so hopefully we see that again.

Miovski will be very keen to build on his first Rangers goal at the weekend and I hope the atmosphere is better than I expect so he can experience his first European home night at Ibrox properly.

Our midfield 3 will benefit from more minutes together, so I hope they can give us a platform to get forward effectively.

Conclusion

It feels like a game with pressure on both managers, similar to the Old Firm a few weeks ago. That turned into a stalemate featuring a serious lack of risk from either team. I hope we don’t see the same tomorrow, and if anyone smells blood in the water, let’s hope it’s Rangers and not Genk.

Follow Adam's Rangers Blog

This article was written for Scottishfootball.info by Adam Bortkiewicz, a Rangers fan and online sports writer, who has his own Rangers blog you can follow.

If you don’t want to receive Rangers specific emails, you can toggle off notifications from the “Rangers” section in your account settings, without having to unsubscribe from all emails.

I’m looking for fan contributors from each of our clubs this season - every post on the website will have a “byline” at the top - stating who the author was.

If no Byline, the author is Gavin (Scotland’s Coefficient)

Hello everyone, the time has arrived for us to discuss the prospect of Rangers playing football again, and we as fans having to witness that prospect.

Hamza Igamane, we hardly knew ye

Fresh from the news of his refusal to train this morning, it was announced this evening that Rangers have agreed the sale of Hamza Igamane to Lille for a fee of £10.5m. The news also seems to indicate that the fee matches a yet-to-be-disclosed release clause in the striker’s contract, reported to be €12m.

Given we were apparently holding out for a price of around £15m for the forward, Rangers either don’t know how release clauses work, or they are trying to leak some semi-positive press about the deal. I’d lean towards option 2.

And so, to Hamza.

Signed for around 1.8 million pounds from the lesser known African footballing market, there was a fair amount of skepticism around the Moroccan’s arrival. Although we certainly needed to sign another striker, it wasn’t really clear if the striker’s skill set would translate to Scottish Football. Eyebrows were further raised when it was revealed that the then 21-year-old was deemed to be below the physical levels required to play in Scotland.

As a result the striker missed the opening few weeks of the season. When he finally appeared off the bench briefly against Celtic and Dundee United, he showed glimpses of talent and the fans clamoured for more. His first start for Rangers at home to Hibernian represented a false start as he struggled to get into the game against the physical Hibs back-line.

That was the last time we saw him fade from a game though, following that start he grabbed the limelight in every short cameo in a team that was desperately lacking in consistency and entertainment value.

His first goal for the club came against FC Steaua Bucharest (set to take on Aberdeen for a spot in the Europa League on Thursday), rounding off a 4-0 drubbing of the Romanians with a fantastic low strike into the bottom corner.

A coolly taken brace in the South of France followed as we slapped OGC Nice around in their own backyard.

The demand for Igamane to be our first choice striker was reaching apoplectic levels at this stage of the season.

Those fan wishes were granted as Igamane was rewarded with a run in the team in the league. During that spell between December and the middle of January, Igamane scored some absolutely fantastic goals and continually got fans out of their seats with feats of skill that reminded us that football at it’s core is about kicking a ball around and having fun.

I don’t want to waste my time recounting all of his good goals, so I’ll just skip to his best.

With the scores locked at 2-2 at Celtic Park, and the home side seemingly in the ascendancy. Interim manager Barry Ferguson turned to Hamza Igamane off the bench to save the day for Rangers. Our number 29 answered the call, taking the ball down shrugging off the challenges of desperate Celtic defenders to hammer home an unsavable strike and secure all 3 points for Rangers.

Although the game itself was a dead rubber, the win was sweet, and silencing a stadium that was baying for a winning goal was even sweeter.

Sadly, either due to bad advice or poor decision making on his behalf, Igamane’s relationship with the club and fans has ended on bad terms.

However, he leaves having netted Rangers a very handsome profit and leaves behind a glittering highlight reel that I am sure to watch on many occasions, probably after a few jars.

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A fresh take?

I don’t think there’s much point in me rehashing some of the chat from previous posts about the issues in this team and the challenge of facing a side like Club Brugge.

We’ve seen the challenge, we know the issues, we are 3-1 down going into the second leg for a reason after all.

But what if we changed things up? Not by shuffling the pack of players who like to forget that they’ve ever seen a football when they enter the pitch, but a slight shift in formation.

Russell Martin has chosen to change formation and deploy a 3 at the back on occasion, could we make that work here?

I’ve had a look at his Southampton team in the Championship playoff final to try and find out. That game was a 1-0 win over a swashbuckling Leeds side who many expected to sail through into the Premier League.

Joe Rothwell was on the bench for Southampton that day, while another Joe, Aribo, was starting in midfield (another great entertainer like Hamza).

The more I think about this set up, the more I like the idea. We need to look more resilient, and we have to maintain an attacking threat, I believe we have the players to make that happen.

We saw the best of John Souttar in a Rangers when playing a three, under Barry Ferguson last season. So I think he would look far more secure than he has so far this season. Djiga would be comfortable on the left, despite his recent shakiness, he is solid in possession and tends to look for a short pass inside anyway. Tavernier had a mini renaissance while playing as a wide centre back last season, he’s the obvious choice here, and his ability on the ball should help our central build up.

In midfield, I’ve aimed for balance and energy. I’ve been extremely disappointed in Mohammed Diomande’s performances this season, but he excelled alongside Raskin while playing in this kind of system, so hopefully it kick-starts his season. Lyall Cameron and Nicolas Raskin bring us legs and energy, I’d hope that they’d relish covering the ground and the space left by this set up.

Meghoma is the obvious choice at left wing back, as we have no one else. Oliver Antman is a more controversial choice given we have Max Aarons. Aarons represents the safer choice, he’s a right back by trade and is more defensively capable than Antman. But I actually think one of the things that’s stood out for me in the Finnish winger’s game, is that he is extremely intelligent when pressing and tracking back out of possession. For example, him winning the penalty against Viktoria Plzen on his debut, that started with him pressing and winning the ball in a defensive position. He also has fantastic energy and would have more space to run into if he was attacking from a slightly deeper position. It’s a gamble, but we kind of need to gamble right now.

Upfront, I’d noticed that Martin actually deployed David Brooks alongside Adam Armstrong in the Playoff final. Armstrong is your bog standard number 9, but David Brooks has spent his career playing as a winger or a number 10. His intelligent movement and happiness to drop into wide areas to support the wing backs was part of the reason Southampton looked so comfortable when building with the ball against a very good pressing team. Although substituted in the 35th minute, his replacement Samuel Edozie performed the same role, being a winger by trade himself.

My reading of this, is that Djeidi Gassama could potentially excel if given that same freedom to roam and support the team in forward areas.

I’m not a manager by any means, and it’s easy for me to put names on a team sheet and talk about it being a great idea, but I like to think I’ve explained my reasoning well. Plus this will all be irrelevant when we see the same 4-3-3 set up tomorrow!

Herculean effort

Tomorrow’s task is a tall order for Rangers. Our 3-2 aggregate win over Union St-Gilloise was our only comeback from 2 goals down in a European tie. And we are going away from home rather than welcoming the opposition to Ibrox tomorrow.

Do I believe that we can do it? Honestly, I don’t think there’s much belief in the tank right now at this club.

The coefficient is looking particularly bleak following Celtic’s rather embarrassing loss against Kairat Almaty this evening. However, I wouldn’t bet against us playing even worse tomorrow.

It’s a sad time when you can’t look forward to a big European away game as a football fan. But who can blame any Rangers fan for feeling that way at the moment.

Let’s hope I can be proven wrong and we can see a bit of fight in this team tomorrow, maybe that starts with a little formation change, Russell?

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Video: Scott Nisbet scores the sensational winner for 10-man Rangers against Club Brugge in the Champions League in March 1993

This article was written for Scottishfootball.info by Adam Bortkiewicz, a Rangers fan and online sports writer, who has his own Rangers blog you can follow.

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I’m looking for fan contributors from each of our clubs this season - every post on the website will have a “byline” at the top - stating who the author was.

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Evening all, it’s European preview time again, and we have lots to discuss about the game and tomorrow’s opponents.

Options and the lack thereof

Rangers go into tomorrow’s game with a noticeable gap at left back. With Jefte removed from the European squad, it falls to the feet of new loan signing Jayden Meghoma to fill the Brazilian’s average sized shoes.

The 19-year-old joins as a highly rated talent from Brentford. His minutes in recent seasons have been limited, hence him spending the second half of last season on loan at Preston North End. From what little I’ve seen of Meghoma, he looks physically robust while unspectacular but solid on the ball. I don’t expect him to be Rangers first choice left back this season, but he may find himself thrust into the limelight tomorrow night given the lack of an orthodox left back in the European squad.

Our European squad has however been bolstered by the addition of Thelo Aasgaard and Mikey Moore in place of Jefte and Oscar Cortes, while Hamza Igamane will be fit to feature this round.

We saw both Aasgaard and Igamane introduced from the bench against Alloa and they brought a real level of sharpness and zip to the team. If either, or both can play at least 55/60 minutes, I’d be tempted to start them. Tomorrow’s game is exactly the kind of game that it’s worth taking a risk for, we need more dynamism in attack, and both the Norwegian and the Moroccan would give us that.

The rest of the team will likely be restored to what we’ve seen in recent games, Raskin appears to have edged ahead of Rothwell as first choice number 6, although Rothwell started our best performance of the season against the Czechs in the previous round.

Gassama and Antman will be restored to the wings, although Moore and Curtis did no harm to their squad value with positive contributions against Alloa at the weekend.

Blue Belgian Club

Tomorrow’s opposition are no strangers to playing in the Champions League in recent seasons. As always, for a more in-depth breakdown of the opposition, you should check out the piece released today.

It’s worth making brief mention of the dress rehearsal for this game from pre-season. A 2-2 draw at Ibrox stadium. Both teams made plenty of substitutions throughout, but a disappointing first half saw Rangers go in 2 goals down. Some changes and reorganisation allowed Rangers to get back in the game, a Danilo goal (remember those?) and a well taken Findlay Curtis first time finish meant the game finished all square.

Given the timing of the European qualifiers for both sides, there wasn’t much to put between the teams physically, but it’s not really the kind of game that we can read into, given it was far more about match sharpness than the result.

Similarly to Viktoria Plzen, Club Brugge have lost a number of key squad members to transfers. However this is a team built around a successful player trading model, so you’d expect them to have planned for these departures and they have reinvested heavily already this summer.

The away side could arguably be coming into this game weaker than they ended last season, and if so we need to take advantage as best we can. It’s a cliche, but with key players departed and new signings still bedding in - there may be no better time to play the Belgians than now.

Unfortunately for Rangers, we can expect tomorrow’s visitors to have a very strong defensive shape out of possession, if we do hold more of the ball as you’d expect at home, then there needs to be a massive improvement in the speed that we get the ball to our wide players. Risk-averse play will just let the away side drop into a comfortable shape.

The biggest attacking threat for the opposition is Christos Tzolis, by far. The Greek wide forward is a serious threat in the penalty area, and I don’t imagine he would be so quick to pass up some of the chances that we’ve presented to opposition forwards recently.

Sadly, there isn’t much to be excited about in terms of weakness in the visiting side, even with the loss of significant players, the squad that remains is extremely strong and may just be too much for this Rangers team over two legs.

What about us?

So we’ve reached the toughest part of the pre-match analysis, what will Rangers do? As I said in my write-up of Saturday’s game, 10 changes or not, the performance and manner of the victory was frankly embarrassing for this Rangers team.

It feels like we are currently racing towards a potentially cataclysmic match for Russell Martin. As each game goes by and we struggle to see any improvement, as supporters we will grow impatient with the management team, that’s a fact. Even as someone who vocally and publicly backed the appointment of Russell Martin, I can feel my dissatisfaction growing.

In my heart I am hoping we will see a sudden turning point domestically, things will click and the team will be playing football in the way the manager intends. But at the moment it doesn’t really seem like such a click is on the horizon any time soon.

However - we witnessed the best performance of this new management era in our last European home game. If we can top that level of performance, I’d back us to really kick on, but that seems like a pipe dream at the moment. The financial benefits would be clear for all to see also.

The manager's message at his press conference was one we’ve got pretty used to hearing already, we have to improve and we have to seize the opportunity put in front of us.

My only vain hope at the moment is that we really are striving to improve as much as the manager insists, and that we will get there, eventually.

All we can do as a support is take each game as it comes, and let’s start that off with a positive result and performance tomorrow!

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Video: Scott Nisbet scores the sensational winner for 10-man Rangers against Club Brugge in the Champions League in March 1993

This article was written for Scottishfootball.info by Adam Bortkiewicz, a Rangers fan and online sports writer, who has his own Rangers blog you can follow.

If you don’t want to receive Rangers specific emails, you can toggle off notifications from the “Rangers” section in your account settings, without having to unsubscribe from all emails.

I’m looking for fan contributors from each of our clubs this season - every post on the website will have a “byline” at the top - stating who the author was.
If no Byline, it was by Gavin (Scotland’s Coefficient)

Good morning all, Rangers return to European action following an extremely disappointing domestic weekend. But what can we expect from this team?

Apathy, thy name is Rangers

The theme of Rangers’ recent seasons, especially post Christmas, has been one of apathy from supporters.

I get it, you only need a quick glance at some of my article titles towards the end of the domestic season with Barry Ferguson as interim manager. I’m sure I used “who cares?” or variations on more than one occasion.

Generally that feeling sets in for supporters after Rangers are out of the cups, the European run has ended and there’s nothing to play for in the league. When you’ve invested lots into a season from an emotional perspective and there’s nothing to show for it, it’s difficult to maintain that investment.

The problem, when you have multiple seasons ending in this fashion, is that you end up with supporters looking to protect themselves from that same level of emotional investment. Sadly I’ve seen some of this attitude already this season, but it’s hard to blame people.

I can’t honestly say that if I hadn’t bought into the new owners and Russell Martin so enthusiastically, maybe I’d start thinking “This season is already done, what’s the point?”.

That’s the biggest challenge for this Rangers team and manager. We should be going into tonight buoyed by a few domestic victories, taking a 3-0 lead into the second leg after a truly brilliant performance last week. Instead, this game feels like a chore to most fans, a European away tie should never feel that way.

Somehow this team has to arrest that attitude, whether that’s by improved performances (the easiest way to improve the mood!) or with better communication with the support. I’m not exactly sure, there’s no silver bullet here, the apathy has set in over many seasons, it will take a lot of work to get the fans ready to fully invest again.

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Mend(y) the broken bonds

Rangers seem to really enjoy making a signing when I am drafting my European previews. Last week it was Antman and this time it’s Nobel Mendy.

Although not confirmed yet, it seems that the mini transfer saga is coming to an end with the Real Betis centre back set to join Rangers permanently. Initially it had been reported that the Senegalese had been leaning in the direction of joining Rayo Vallecano in Spain. But clearly he took one look at the weather forecast and decided that he had to experience the mini Glaswegian heatwave instead. No one tell him about the 3pm sunsets in the winter months.

I’ve taken a little look at Mendy, alongside taking the opinions of a few trusted people who watch far more Spanish football than I do.

The main quality being touted for the 20-year-old is that he’s left footed. We’ve all watched John Souttar struggle to open the game up when playing on the left side of the defence. Having a left footed centre back really changes the kind of angles you can play out from the back.

He does seem to be more of an orthodox defender than Djiga. Which could work well in terms of a partnership, the last time we’ve had a proper partnership was probably Connor Goldson and Filip Helander. The last time they played together was back in 2022.

I would love a settled back 4 to go into most games this season. A centre back partnership that compliments each other is a crucial part of that.

In terms of negatives, signing a young centre back who hasn’t played lots of senior football is always a risk. Promising or not, it’s hard to know if they have the character to play in the pressure cooker that is Ibrox.

But we’ve seen our rivals have plenty of success signing this kind of profile. Attitude and character are traits that can be scouted like anything else. Let’s hope that the scouts have done their due diligence.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes?

Given the changes we saw for the home leg off the back of a domestic disappointment, speculation is rife that the manager will ring the changes again to improve the levels of performance.

I think we may see Nicolas Raskin return to the line-up. For Lyall Cameron or Joe Rothwell, I’m not sure. But this is the kind of game where the Belgian’s energy and tenacity can help us wrestle control of the midfield. Which is always the key battle for European away games.

We struggled away in Athens, there’s no doubt that the first half was a tough watch especially. There wasn’t enough bravery on the ball and a lack of willingness to take control of the ball and get us up the pitch.

Tonight’s opposition are superior to Panathinaikos, so that aspect of our game has to improve.

James Tavernier may return to the line-up given Max Aarons did not particularly impress at the weekend. Although I think we may have more need for Aarons’ athleticism in this kind of game.

Aside from that, one of our biggest issues at the moment is that shuffling the pack doesn’t really produce many great alternatives. Without Aasgaard and Igamane as available options, there’s not much room for variation without introducing Kieron Dowell. And we know how the fans feel about that particular move.

Buy-in

Something that we’ve not seen much under previous managers, is the squad talking about “buying in” to the philosophy and style of football. That’s probably because we didn’t see much of a philosophy under recent management.

I think as players it’s far easier to buy into something tangible rather than just committing to improve performances generally.

Jack Butland was on presser duties and he talked about the belief the squad have in the managers way of playing and some real introspection taking place after Saturday. Obviously this could be all empty platitudes, but if I was that cynical about everything I wouldn’t really have anything to write about.

There is something there we can build-on, that's what I believe, and we are really pushing to implement what the manager is asking of us. We will get a lot better as we go, but first of all, results are what matter.

For me, there’s no doubt that the owners have no interest in sacking Russell Martin barring a genuinely apocalyptic run of form. They know things take time, we’ve seen some serious peaks and troughs in terms of performances so far. Bringing the performance baseline up to a level that gets results domestically and competes in Europe has to be the goal for this first season.

I believe that if we do that we will likely pick up a trophy or two, maybe not the league title given the level of consistency required. But I don’t want to throw in the towel now.

In terms of approach, Russell Martin was keen to emphasise that we aren’t here to just see out the tie, we need to build on what we have and win the game. That’s the correct approach for any away tie, let’s hope that’s reflected on the pitch.

We come here to win the game.

Aside from that, tonight’s game is a 6pm kick off, which is great news as I can still play 5-a-side at 8:30pm. So big smiles all around, enjoy the game and stay safe if you’ve travelled to the Czech Republic.

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Video: BBC analysis of Oliver Antman’s debut performance in the 1st leg

This article was written for Scottishfootball.info by Adam Bortkiewicz, a Rangers fan and online sports writer, who has his own Rangers blog you can follow.

If you don’t want to receive Rangers specific emails, you can toggle off notifications from the “Rangers” section in your account settings, without having to unsubscribe from all emails.

I’m looking for fan contributors from each of our clubs this season - every post on the website will have a “byline” at the top - stating who the author was.
If no Byline, it was by Gavin (Scotland’s Coefficient)

Evening all, the games are coming thick and fast for Rangers as we’ve barely had time to process Saturday’s result before going into another tough game. We’re back at home and welcome Viktoria Plzeň to Ibrox stadium for our 3rd round Champions League qualifier.

Fallout

Given the manager spent the majority of his press conference today talking about Saturday’s game and what’s happened since, it would be remiss for me not to address it further.

I am a big fan of Martin’s attitude addressing the questions of the press. I think some would have expected him to roll back some of his comments given how direct and critical he was after Saturday’s draw at Fir Park.

Instead he was keen to reassure everyone that what he said on Saturday wasn’t “emotional” and was exactly what he said to the players as well.

He also addressed the “learned behaviour” of the squad. Although this seems like an easy thing to say on paper, we saw Michael Beale and Philippe Clement effectively throwing their predecessors under the bus and then make the exact same mistakes. The difference with Martin is that he’s got a much bigger remit of coming into despondent teams and turning them into squads that play great football and get results. But I won’t be getting too excited, until we see what the response is like from the squad in the coming weeks.

Another thing that stood out for me was Martin’s response to a question about if leadership was about “shouting and raving”. He was quick to say that he saw leadership as being about “selflessness” instead. I absolutely agree and modern football has long since moved on from captains needing to first and foremost be the loudest voice on the pitch. We can put plenty of stock in Martin’s statement given he was the captain of a Premier League side and had to show those qualities on a daily basis.

Allegedly there’s been a good response in training, but that’s another one we’ve heard before, so I am biding my time until tomorrow’s game at least before making any comments there.

Czeching in on the opposition

To shift our gaze to tomorrow’s visitors, it’s another side that comes into the game with a big pedigree. I’ll refer you again to ’s breakdown as he was able to go a lot more in-depth on the away side and how they play.

A slightly worrying takeaway for me is that they are a serious threat on the counter-attack. We saw how vulnerable we looked in transition playing a Panathinaikos side that were far more comfortable in settled possession. We can also see that the sides in the Czech league are physically robust, so that’s another test for our players.

Given the way we started shelling the ball up the park under a semi organised press from Motherwell on Saturday, I won’t lie, I’m not particularly optimistic about how long these players will stick to playing the way that can give us a platform to build from.

In terms of individuals I am most excited to see Matěj Vydra, often linked with Rangers and with an impressive EFL résumé he will be a nice player to tick off the list of seeing him in the flesh should he start (which seems likely). In terms of threat he seems to be a bit of a Swiss(Czech?)-army knife in terms of playing a variety of roles in the front 3/2 depending on what the manager needs. His experience and his current goal scoring form make him a real threat to our less-than-secure back line.

The biggest boost has been the loss of two of Plzeň’s best players in the transfer window. Pavel Šulc hasn’t travelled to Glasgow to ensure his transfer to Lyon goes through. While Lukáš Kalvach has already made the switch to the sunny and lucrative sands of Qatar.

The visitors haven’t had time to acquire suitable replacements, so let’s hope that can tip the strength of squads in Rangers favour for this tie.

Finally a Finn

The biggest news of today comes in the form of much-needed reinforcement in wide areas for Rangers as Oliver Antman arrives for a reported £3m fee from Go Ahead Eagles.

6 goals and 15 assists in the Eredivisie from a winger is nothing to be sniffed at. He arrives with a lot of expectation as Rangers have been clamouring for someone to displace Kieron Dowell since his surprise re-emergence as Rangers right wing option.

This falls right into the bracket of the young players ready to explode that we should be interested in. The prospect of Djeidi Gassama on one wing and Antman on the other is truly exciting for the team and our prospects this season.

The biggest question now is if the club can register Antman in time to play tomorrow. informs me that we can make two changes to the squad by 11pm tonight, and so Antman has to come in. With Igamane and Aasgaard still injured - it seems an easy decision to make to remove one from the squad for this tie.

For the rest of the team, there’s been lots of questions about who may be dropped given the manager referred to multiple individuals that weren’t following instructions. Lyall Cameron did the press conference alongside the manager, generally that’s the responsibility that would fall to a starter, could he in line to make his full Rangers debut? I would certainly be surprised to see it, it would be a big ask for the young man, but what a show of faith from the manager.

Aside from that I’d hoped we’d get to see Mikey Moore start on one of the wings, ideally on the right with Dowell sent to the glue factory. Alas, that’s probably wishful thinking. Moore is another one that didn’t make the original UEFA squad on Thursday night, and ideally would be one of the two additions to tonight’s squad. The rumour is that his international clearance has not yet been granted though, and so he once again will watch from the stands.

I wonder if the manager’s loyalty to Danilo might finally wilt and we could see Dessers start instead. Martin praised Dessers’ running off the bench on Saturday. Danilo hasn’t really been pulling up trees in any of the competitive fixtures he’s been involved in. I wouldn’t be against us switching things up in that department.

As much as we might hope, I’m not expecting any further changes beyond that. Even with the mixed fortunes of this back 4, the manager isn’t likely to twist and change things anytime soon.

The biggest disappointment regarding team news is that Thelo Aasgaard and Hamza Igamane aren’t fit enough to make the squad again. That’s two fantastic attacking assets that we’ve barely seen this season due to allegedly small injuries. The quicker we can get them back in the picture the better, Saturday was crying out for a bit of variety in attack once things started to slip away.

One thing at a time

Despite Saturday’s result, I still believe this side has enough to progress across two legs against this Plzeň side. We’ve already seen that the team has the quality to score good goals when things come off, we can absolutely do that tomorrow and give us the best chance of making it through the second leg.

With nothing set in stone, it’s maybe bad fortune to look ahead. But I have to mention that we’ve been drawn against RB Salzburg/Club Brugge in the play off round should we progress from this tie.

It’s the best available option although by no means an easy tie. Let’s have a bigger think about that game once we knock the Czechs out (optimism).

Enjoy the game, I’ll be there so hopefully I can help the team get a result.

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Video: The reaction of the Panathinaikos bench to Djeidi Gassama’s tie-killing strike last week

This article was written for Scottishfootball.info by , a Rangers fan and online sports writer, who has his own Rangers blog you can follow.

Good evening all, Rangers face a decent sized ask tomorrow night, going away to a good footballing side for 90 minutes and holding onto a 2 goal lead. I don’t think this tie is over for a second, and neither will anyone in either team.

Igamane down

In terms of team news, it’s not ideal. Following a small injury picked up in a behind closed doors game ahead of the first leg, Thelo Aasgaard hasn’t been passed fit to play and won’t join the squad in Athens. I hope that we are severely edging on the side of caution with him, as much as we could do with his presence in midfield or even the front 3. Signing a new player and rushing him back from a small injury wouldn’t do us any good.

RM: “Thelo didn't quite make it, to risk him early on at this stage of the season would be crazy so we will make sure he is right.”

Another player who hasn’t made the squad is Hamza Igamane. The Moroccan was missing from Saturday’s friendly with a small issue and in similar fashion to Aasgaard, hasn’t recovered in time to make the trip to Greece. I think this is a serious miss, Danilo’s form in pre-season has been exceptional, but he doesn’t give you the variety that Igamane does. In truth, there’s no one in the squad who can impact the game in the way our number 29 can, that’s always going to be impossible to replace on short notice.

What does that mean for the lineup? Well I expect we won’t see a large number of changes from last week, even if I wouldn’t mind seeing Kieron Dowell left unattended in the baggage area at the airport.

Gassama played some decent minutes on Saturday, but I don’t think that Martin would ever reward a player with 3 goals in 3 games by returning him to the bench. Findlay Curtis has earned his place on the left, so unless Gassama comes in for Dowell, our French winger will bide his time like he did in the first leg.

Video: Findlay Curtis opens the scoring in the 1st leg, source: Rangers TV

A bit of cohesion is by no means a bad thing though, we saw that same XI play their way into the game at Ibrox. Let’s just hope they manage to do it without making us all sweat first.

Caution as compromise

When Russell Martin was given the job as Rangers manager, he made a few things clear in his opening press conference. One is that he has his philosophy and the clubs he manages have to match that, and two is that he knows you need to adapt when the situation demands it.

So we have a 2 goal lead to protect at a tough away venue in the searing heat, what do you think the manager said when asked about how his team would approach the game?

RM: “When you talk about the approach for this game, nothing changes.”

I don’t think this should be a surprise to anyone. In my post match review of the first leg, I spoke about Martin not compromising on his style and beliefs when the players were clearly struggling. We can’t go to the away leg and then decide we should be conceding the ball to a side we have to compete with.

As painful as it may be at times, we need to stick to that approach, especially in this kind of high pressure situation. The players need to believe that this way of playing can work for them in every game, big or small. And as many a fan will be keen to remark, you are expected to win every game at Rangers. There’s no better way to do that than by approaching every game with the same mentality.

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Maverick and Goose

The crucial part of the pitch tonight, as it was in the first leg, will be the wide areas. In the first leg we saw the opposition create wide overloads consistently by taking advantage of the space left behind, with either the full backs inverting or the wingers getting caught too high up the pitch.

However, both goals came from our left winger holding their wide position while we played our way to them. There will be similar space available tomorrow night, and whoever starts on the left has to be disciplined and not come too close to the ball.

Video: Djeidi Gassama scoring the second in the 1st leg, 3 minutes into his debut. Source: Rangers TV

Panathinaikos are very keen to commit bodies to the press, especially when it looks like Rangers have limited options to play through. Remaining calm and playing through that pressure creates 1v1s for the wide players to take advantage of. Given the scoreline, we know that the Greek side will be on top of us from the first minute. The whole backline conspired to give the ball away on multiple occasions in the first leg, that really can’t happen here, especially not in the early stages of the game.

The home side won’t be compromising on their attacking and pressing approach, I don’t imagine the home crowd would let them anyway. Rangers have to harness that and use the ball well to take the sting out of the game. However, it’s in the early stages when the game will be at it’s most emotional for the home side, that it’s the perfect time to score.

On the other wing we have the proverbial Goose in this situation. While the left winger’s remit is about staying high and wide, ready to engage their full back 1 on 1 or step inside into the space vacated by an advancing midfield. The right winger seems to be encouraged to come inside and create combinations with the midfielder and fullback.

Kieron Dowell tried to do this on Tuesday without much success. If he starts as expected, his role may be extremely important in allowing us to retain possession and play our way down the right hand side of the pitch. A cool head providing an extra option in possession is invaluable in the expected heat of the game.

The main thing is, Rangers have a job to do, and progression would set us up very nicely for the next round of qualifiers. UCL money could be transformative, but we know how tall a task it is to get there. Safe travels if you are making the trip to Greece, and let’s hope the team can get the job done.

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This article was kindly written as a guest contribution to the page by Adam Bortkiewicz.
Adam is a Rangers fan from Glasgow and is an aspiring sports writer, who contributed a couple of articles to my twitter account last season. He has a long running Rangers fan blog, which he has recently migrated to substack under the blog name “Near and Far”.

Throughout the season, I’ll be inviting fans from a variety of different teams to see if they’d like to contribute to the website in any way. If you have a passion for your club and would like to give writing a go - please get in touch.

I will continue my usual level of posting on all clubs from a neutral viewpoint, but I thought that supporters might enjoy reading from their fellow fan from time-to-time. I have added a “byline” section to the top of every article, so you’ll now be able to see at a glance if it was written by Gavin - (Scotland’s Coefficient) or if it was a fan contribution by the named writer.
Adam’s name shows at the top of this article.

Thanks, Gavin

Good evening all, Rangers line up for their first competitive game under Russell Martin against Panathinaikos tomorrow evening at 19:45pm, live on Premier Sports 1.

This is a big game, it’s a baptism of fire for a new Rangers manager. Do we have the tools to progress? Let’s have a look at what we’ve seen from the club so far and what awaits us at Ibrox stadium.

I know what you did last this summer

I don’t want to dedicate too many words to Rangers summer transfer business given I’ll likely do that in a future article. But given it’s our first competitive game of the season and we’ve seen a fair bit of movement so far I think it’s worth mentioning.

The new owners and Russell Martin haven’t been shy about the fact that this Rangers squad requires some major surgery to be competitive on multiple fronts in the coming season.

On outgoings, there hasn’t been much to report, the only departures have been those leaving at the end of their deals like Leon Balogun, Tom Lawrence and Ianis Hagi. It’s nice to see some wages shaved off the bill, but fans would have expected more, there are several players who should never wear a Rangers shirt again still hanging around the club.

Moves away for Robin Propper and Ben Davies have seemed to drag on all summer, with the hope being that those two can be shifted for reasonable fees to locations where their respective reputations remain fairly strong.

Mohammed Diomande, Nico Raskin, Cyriel Dessers and Hamza Igamane have all had various transfer links and reports of offers made to Rangers. But as of yet, none of these bids have been considered worthy of a reply.

The departure lounge may be fairly empty but it seems like several shuttle buses may be required at arrivals.

Thelo Aasgaard, Emmanuel Fernandez, Djeidi Gassama and Joe Rothwell have all arrived at Ibrox on permanent deals. With Max Aarons and Nasser Djiga joining on loan for the season.

All of the signings fall firmly in the tenants of strong squad building:

• Young talent signed to improve the team in future - Fernandez

• First team ready players signed for less than their current value - Aasgaard, Gassama

• Experience to strengthen the leadership core of a (hopefully) young squad - Rothwell

• High quality starters on loan to improve results in the short term without adding financial pressure - Djiga, Aarons

The main disappointment of the window has largely been that we couldn’t get more moves done ahead of the deadline for the European squad registration (17th July). Hopefully that isn’t something that comes back to bite us.

A drachma for your thoughts

Before I give some very light analysis on our opposition tomorrow, I’d be better directing you to this fantastic in-depth piece by Patrick Caskie.

Statskala

Pana, Pana, Pana

A Note on Formatting…

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9 months ago · 6 likes · 4 comments · Patrick Caskie

I could never achieve that kind of detail so I will be taking a broader approach.

Squad-wise, there’s a mismatch of recognisable names: Tin Jedvaj, Alban Lafont, Bartlomiej Dragowski, Phillip Max, Pedro Chirivella and Tetê. Supplemented by a variety of strong domestic talent.

Very reminiscent of the Olympiakos team that Rangers played in Athens last season. Unfortunately I used up all my Greek philosophy based references on that article as I didn’t bank on us playing another Greek team so soon.

Despite the wealth of individual talent it’s clear that Panathinaikos are a very structure heavy side. Lots of possession and high pressing while relying on volume over precision in the final third.

I imagine Russell Martin will be licking his lips watching tapes of the Athens-based side. His first competitive game and he has a chance to show his tactical acumen and problem solving by setting Rangers up to exploit the weaknesses in the opposition’s system.

We might be slightly inhibited by Butland’s ability to play with his feet, but I suspect we will see plenty baiting of the high press before playing sharply through the lines. Diomande will be key to this approach, his ability to take in the half turn will turn stable possession into an attack very easily.

I expect that the key to exploiting the Greeks will be forcing them into the wide areas where they don’t feel particularly comfortable creating from.

Aside from that, the onus will likely be on Rangers tomorrow to get the ball and force the Greeks onto the back foot given the game’s taking place at Ibrox. In Athens it may be a different story.

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Out with the old and in with the…eh...old?

As I alluded to earlier, our options for this game are sadly more limited than I’m sure the club would like.

In terms of starting line-up, I expect we will see Butland keep his place in goal, there’s been links to goalkeepers but nothing has materialised yet. Tavernier will start at right back with Aarons playing left back (no Ridvan in the European squad). The central defenders will be Djiga and Souttar. That part of the team seems fairly set from the behind closed doors line-ups.

Midfield is where it could get interesting. New signing Thelo Aasgaard would likely have started in the front 3 but he’s been absent from training after picking up a knock in a friendly, so I think it will be a surprise if he makes the bench.

Diomande and Raskin will likely start, if it ain’t broke and all that. The last spot is between Joe Rothwell and Kieran Dowell. Dowell’s emergence as one of the “leadership group” has been surprising to say the least, but if he can have a positive impact on the squad without actually playing that much then I won’t be too angry. However, for a game of this magnitude I want to see Rothwell, he’s the superior player and is experienced in big occasions (even if he’s lacking some European experience).

The front 3 will feel very familiar, new signing Djiedi Gassama isn’t ready to start after a disrupted pre-season due to whatever nonsense was going on at Sheffield Wednesday. Aasgaard would have been a contender here too, but as aforementioned, he doesn’t look like he’s going to make it.

Danilo will start as the striker, his form in pre-season has been exceptional, and I really hope he can carry that into the season and (crucially) stay fit! Dessers and Igamane are fit enough for the bench should we need to roll the dice.

With all that in mind I expect we will see Oscar Cortes on one wing and a toss up between Nedim Bajrami and Findlay Curtis to start on the other. There’s obviously a significant difference in experience there, but Curtis has had significant minutes in pre-season so that makes me wonder if Martin likes the cut of his jib. I’m obviously very much on the “Sell Bajrami” train, if anything I’d at least be the conductor of said train, but he had a promising cameo against Club Brugge and has obviously avoided doing anything horrendously wrong in training. The Albanian’s experience might edge him ahead of the youngster for such an important game.

The atmosphere tomorrow will be balanced on a knife edge, start well and take control and Ibrox will be deafening. A slow start, or even worse, going a goal down, you can forget about that. Fans are keen to get behind the team, but there’s doubts about Russell Martin from large swathes of the support. It won’t take long for those doubts to be expressed from the stands if they don’t like what they are seeing.

The manager will be aware of that, I expect the intensity to be high from the first whistle, we won’t want to give the Greeks time to get into a rhythm and hold the ball. Our press will be high and aggressive, maybe bordering on risky, I’m not against that at all. Better sides than Panathinaikos have stumbled under the gaze of the Ibrox microscope, there’s no point letting them think this is somewhere where they can set up and hold the ball.

Lay it all on the line

So, what’s at stake for Rangers tomorrow night and for the tie in general? Well in terms of larger point stakes I’ll direct you to my colleague, second name Coefficient, first name Scotland’s. He will have all the information you need.

For Rangers specifically, win the tie and we go onto face Viktoria Plzen or Servette. That’s a favourable draw, and should be serious motivation to progress beyond this stage of qualifying. Lose it and we drop down into a tougher tie against Beşiktaş or Shakhtar Donetsk to get into the Europa League play off.

With the prospect of tougher opponents if we drop down, realistically we need to at least make our way past Panathinaikos or we might need to start learning the Conference League theme music (spoiler: it doesn’t have its own theme, embarrassing).

I don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves, but the prospect of the UCL qualification money is something that will massively motivate the owners and could potentially accelerate this rebuild we have going.

This qualification run feels very reminiscent of that first UCL campaign under Gerrard following our title win in 2021. We knew there was a significant chance for the club to get a real financial leg up over Celtic by qualifying. Malmö awaited Rangers in the 3rd Round qualifier. A 2-1 away loss in Sweden was bad but the away goal was huge on paper. Morelos put us 1 goal up at home and when Malmö went down to 10 men, we began to dream of the play off. But it wasn’t to be, future Rangers hitman Antonio Colak put paid to those dreams with a quickfire double.

We frittered that opportunity away and it had a significant impact on the squad for that campaign. The club have to avoid that same fate here.

By no means are tomorrow’s opponents easy, but we have to be confident of getting beyond this tie and then we can really start dreaming big.

This article is free for all subscribers as it was written for the page as a guest article by Adam Bortkiewicz, a Rangers fan and aspiring sportswriter: All feedback is welcome, and please give him a follow x.com/Adam_B_Writer. If you would like to write about your team as a guest contributor to the page, please drop me a message.

It's only the second time the two sides have met, after the 1969 Fairs Cup Quarter Final, which saw Rangers progress 4-3 on aggregate. They won 4-1 at Ibrox, with a certain Sir Alex Ferguson opening the scoring for the Gers. They could even afford John Greig skying a penalty over the bar with the score at 2-1. Rangers then lost the Semi Finals 2-0 to eventual winners Newcastle United. Incredibly, the toon wouldn't win another trophy until 2025.

Evening all, Rangers face their toughest test this season at 8pm tomorrow, as they welcome Athletic Club de Bilbao to Ibrox Stadium. It’s no exaggeration to say that the Basque club have been one of the favourites to win the competition all season.

The story so far

Athletic Club finished 2nd in the league phase. Finishing behind Lazio on goal difference only. They progressed past the round of 16 at the expense of Roma, winning 4-3 over Claudio Ranieri's side.

I watched a fair bit of both legs as I was aware we'd play the victor. The first leg in Rome was evenly matched, Roma triumphed with a late winner after Athletic went down to 10 men.

The second leg is incredibly hard to analyse as Roma went down to 10 this time, Mats Hummels receiving his marching orders (very harshly) in the 11th minute of the game. The home side took full advantage and took a 3 goal lead on the night. A very late Roma penalty flatters their influence on the outcome of the tie, as truthfully it looked a foregone conclusion following the red card.

I'll talk about Athletic Club's tactical set up and what we can expect soon, but I want to quickly talk about their league form first. They currently reside in 4th place in La Liga with 54 points, probably just outside the range of challenging for the title and likely to stay ahead of Villarreal 6 points behind them.

What's really striking about their form this season is the sheer volume of draws in the league. 12 games is second only to 13th placed Osasuna. The Basques have the joint best defence in the league but aren't as prolific as the sides above them in the table.

Since a 7-1 win over Real Valladolid on the 23rd February, they have only managed to score 2 goals and win 1 match. There's been plenty of criticism regarding the teams inconsistent league form, but the Europa league has offered a platform for far more consistency. Sounds familiar.

What to expect?

Athletic Club have typically fielded a 4-2-3-1 formation. The midfield 2 are encouraged to stay very disciplined both in and out of possession, they very rarely leave gaps in midfield and at times have a back 6 behind the ball.

Sounds quite negative, but they are one of the few teams at this level that can afford to leave their attack so undermanned.

The club has produced two of the most exciting wide attackers in recent footballing history. Iñaki Williams has been a consistent goal scorer across his La Liga career, breaking into the first team in 2015, he has since registered 110 goals and 67 assists in 463 appearances.

On the other side, his younger brother Nico is widely touted as the best up-and-coming wide forward in Spanish football. You may recognise him as the scorer of Spain's first goal against England in the recent European Championship final. He's been linked with moves to Europe's elite teams with fees around 80 million Euros being discussed as the starting price.

What does that mean for Rangers? Well it will really put our current defenders to the test. This is a team that move the ball very quickly into the Williams brothers and look to isolate a teams wide defenders 1v1. Stopping the supply is easier said than done, as in Yuri Berchiche and Oscar De Marcos, the Basques have two excellent fullbacks very capable of playing either winger in behind.

Any pair of fullbacks in Europe would be trembling at the prospect of facing this Bilbao side. The midfield and the wide centre backs will need to be extremely well placed to support Tav and Jefte/Ridvan. But when the wingers have been kept quiet, Athletic Club have been toothless this season. How we keep them quiet will be the question on Barry Ferguson's mind.

Another threat for Rangers to consider is set-pieces. Athletic Club scored 2 goals from corners against Roma and generally look for a near post flick-on before having their attackers react to the ensuing melee in the 6 yard box.

Cause for hope?

As with many great attacking wingers, the Williams's aren't too concerned with tracking back in the other direction. The wide areas are both Rangers' greatest danger defending and threat going forward.

Going blow to blow with this level of opposition will see Rangers get shredded on the counter. But there will be opportunities for Rangers to hurt the visiting team by committing numbers into wide areas to create overloads and hopefully get Cerny/Tavernier/Igamane in behind.

The management team will need to coach the players carefully on when is best in the game to commit bodies into the attack in wide areas. This will involve telling the leaders in the team such as Vaclav Cerny and James Tavernier about when to encourage teammates to push into attacking areas.

If Rangers are able to time these attacks and moments well, and also take the chances when they arrive. They stand a chance of playing Athletic Club at their own game, defending in numbers before setting their own dangerous pacey threats away down the other end of the pitch.

Ibrox Hoodoo

I don't want really want to keep lambasting this Rangers team and the management. But the fact that they have contrived to lose every single home game in charge is a slight concern ahead of this home European tie against a very good side.

The best home performance produced by this team in recent games was probably the 2-0 home defeat to Fenerbahce. Although the home side tired and eventually had to drag the game to penalties to progress, the tactical set-up was fairly strong and the effort levels high.

A repeat of that level of performance won't be good enough tomorrow, this side need to find a way to harness the levels and energy demonstrated in their triumphs away from home. Whether that's by relying on the fantastic atmosphere they can expect at home. Or by pulling out one of those classic football superstitions like entering the pitch in a certain order or something similarly ridiculous. They need to find some kind of solution to have a hope of progressing in this tie.

Good Luck Rangers! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Queen’s Park’s 1-0 Scottish Cup victory at Ibrox - marking the first time in Rangers’ history they lost at home in the Scottish Cup to lower-league opposition - meant the Gers had no fixture over the weekend, instead watching on while rivals Celtic advanced to another Semi-Final.

However, with that humiliation comes opportunity. The week given to rest, recover, and prepare - after simply dismantling Mourinho’s men in Turkey - could prove crucial, especially since Fenerbahçe also enjoyed a free weekend. The Turkish delight of a 3-1 (going on 6-1) away victory was truly brilliant, but it doesn’t guarantee progression; a two-goal win for the Turks would take the tie into extra time. It would be foolish to forget that St. Mirren beat Rangers by two goals at Ibrox just weeks ago.

If Rangers lose on Thursday, it would be the first time in their 153-year history that they have lost four consecutive matches at Ibrox. Their domestic season may be over, but they know the rewards of breaking that unwanted streak will ensure a place in the Europa League Quarter-Finals for the second time since 2022. They’ve previously lost three home games on the bounce - but they’ve always won the fourth match:

SEQUENCES OF THREE CONSECUTIVE HOME LOSS

In 2025:

1. Lost 0-1 Vs Queen’s Park in the Scottish Cup

2. Lost 0-2 Vs St. Mirren in the league

3. Lost 1-2 Vs Motherwell in the league

4. Thursday: Rangers Vs Fenerbahçe in the Europa League

In 2012:

1. Lost 0-2 Vs Dundee United in the Scottish Cup

2. Lost 0-1 Vs Kilmarnock in the league

3. Lost 1-2 Vs Hearts in the league

4. WON 3-2 Vs Celtic in the league (preventing Celtic from clinching the title at Ibrox)

In 2001:

1. Lost 0-2 Vs Dundee in the league

2. Lost 0-2 Vs Dundee United in the league

3. Lost 0-3 Vs Celtic in the league

4. WON 5-1 Vs Kilmarnock in the league

In 1994:

1. Lost 0-1 Vs AEK Athens in Champions League qualifier

2. Lost 0-2 Vs Celtic in the league

3. Lost 1-2 Vs Falkirk in the League Cup

4. WON 3-0 Vs Hearts in the league

In 1971:

1. Lost 0-3 Vs Celtic in the League Cup

2. Lost 2-3 Vs Celtic in the league

3. Lost 0-2 Vs Aberdeen in the league

4. WON 1-0 Vs Stade Rennais in the Cup Winners’ Cup

In 1957:

1. Lost 2-3 Vs Celtic in the league

2. Lost 2-3 Vs Hearts in the league

3. Lost 3-4 Vs Kilmarnock in the league

4. WON 2-0 Vs Clyde in the league

A 4th consecutive home loss would undoubtedly go down in Rangers history as a horrific set of results during a tumultuous period. Of course, thanks to their two goal cushion, even a one goal defeat would still spark jubilant celebrations as they’d progress on aggregate, and nobody would care about the significance of the loss!

EUROPEAN STATS IN RANGERS’ FAVOUR

The good news for the Rangers fans reading is that the European stats ahead of this match are certainly on their side:

• Rangers have only lost 2 of their last 14 home Europa League games since a 2-0 defeat to Lyon in 2021.

• Fenerbahçe have only won 1 of their past 11 knockout away games (7 losses) since 2013 Europa League (that season was their one & only European Semi Final)

  

• With a two goal first leg lead, Rangers have progressed 96% of the time (24 out of 25 occasions), and it’s a 100% progression rate when bringing a two goal lead back to Ibrox

• The only time they failed to progress with such a lead was in the 1999/00 UEFA Cup, when they lost on penalties to Borussia Dortmund after a 2-2 aggregate draw. Current manager Barry Ferguson and coach Neil McCann both featured in that 2-0 loss in Dortmund, which saw Jens Lehmann save penalties from van Bronckhorst, Numan, and Reyna. Earlier, Lehmann had come up for a last-minute corner, with Rangers winning the tie 2-1, and the future Arsenal keeper set up the equaliser to take the tie to extra time.

  

• Rangers have never lost at home to Turkish opposition (3 wins + 2 draws)

  

• Rangers have only lost 8 UEFA Cup/Europa League home games since they made their debut in 1982 against Borussia Dortmund. This graphic details every match over the 43 year span:

RANGERS HOME RECORD IN THE EUROPA LEAGUE

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Both Roma and Lazio lead 2-1 after their respective Europa League first legs. If they both progress, they’d BOTH be due to play at home in Rome in the same stadium on the same night in the second leg of the Quarter Finals.

Obviously that’s not possible, and so the change will be a REVERSAL of fixtures for the team that finished lower in the Europa League Phase (Roma), rather than a moving of Roma’s fixture to the Wednesday.

That has massive implications for Rangers fans looking to book travel in advance - if they progress, they won’t know if they are home or away in the first leg until full time. If Rangers, Roma and Lazio all progress then Rangers are away in Rome first (10th April) and play at Ibrox in the return leg (17th April). Any other combination of teams progressing will see Rangers play at home first, and away in the second leg - as was drawn by UEFA.

In terms of competitive advantage too, it’s widely accepted that having the second leg at home is a big advantage. Therefore Rangers fans will hope this situation comes to pass and both of the Roman giants progress - if the Gers can finish the job against Mourinho’s men next Thursday.

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Morning all, it's the first European test for Barry Ferguson tonight as Rangers travel to Turkey to face Fenerbahçe at the Şükrü Saracoğlu Stadium, in the Europa league round of 16. There's lots to talk about with both teams, but let’s start with the managers.

BARRY VS JOSE

Fenerbahçe are currently managed by 2-time UCL winning manager, Jose Mourinho. If I was to list his achievements in football, I'd have no room left in the article for any analysis. There's no doubt that in terms of European managers, there are very few with more pedigree than the Portuguese. His style of football was once seen as revolutionary, but his managerial record in the last 10 years has been impeached by player fallouts, massive collapses in form and general inconsistency in playing style.

In the away dugout tonight, we have a marginally less experienced manager in Barry Ferguson. His record as Rangers manager reads 2 games: 1 win, 1 defeat. His achievements as a manager would fit on the back of a post-it note. In terms of style, there's been signs of a basic top heavy attacking approach, with nothing approaching flexibility or adaptability.

I think there's actually a few similarities between the managers though. Both men are known for their bullish personalities, that's more evident on the pitch for Barry than Jose. Some of Ferguson's early press conferences have been "Mourinho-lite" with an emphasis on winning and expectations, while avoiding questions on style of play. I even think the "hard but fun" style of training that we've seen at Rangers under Ferguson would marry up with the approach to training we've seen from Jose.

The last time Jose Mourinho and Barry Ferguson met, Chelsea ran out comfortable 4-0 winners at Stamford Bridge in 2004, thanks to a 14-minute hat-trick by Eidur Gudjohnsen. A certain Arjen Robben made his debut for Chelsea.

Of course, this all comes with the disclaimer that there's clearly far more to being a manager than a few surface level features. But my overall point is that both managers fall under the "cult of personality" style. In their eyes they set the pace and the team match it, there's no adjustment made to let those who may struggle catch up.

That brings me nicely onto Jose Mourinho's comments from yesterday. He was quick to dress down Philippe Clement after the former Rangers manager was critical of Jose upon the announcement of the draw. His point about Clement talking about "philosophy" rather than winning games really made me laugh, in the Belgians time at Rangers we rarely saw evidence of a footballing philosophy and there certainly wasn't an emphasis on winning games either.

Jose also spoke about potentially managing Celtic or Rangers in the future. That sums up just how the Portuguese expresses his personality. I can't think of many managers in the world who would happily generate such a story on the eve of a European tie. Truly, personalities like Jose make the game entertaining in a way that we've started to lose in recent years.

RANGERS’ LEAST FAVOURITE FORMATION

Having looked over Fenerbahçe's recent games, especially in Europe. It's clear they favour a 3-5-2 system currently. This is bad news for Rangers; in the last two home games they have been undone by two teams playing that same formation. It goes without saying that Fenerbahçe have slightly better players than St Mirren and Motherwell too.

The interim management team had 90 minutes (not including any pre-match prep) to try and find a way to unpick the well organised Steelmen side. They made a minor adjustment by switching to a 4-4-1-1 from their preferred 4-2-4, but this just increased the congestion in front of the Well back 3. Eventually Rangers had as many forward players as they could fit on the pitch - with no result to show for it.

It goes without saying that if he wants stop tonight being a European humiliation, Barry Ferguson and his coaching team need to put their heads together to find an approach to this game that doesn't lead to isolated forward players, an overworked midfield and an exposed defence.

The potential saving grace for Rangers is that the Fenerbahçe 3-5-2 is a much more attacking shape than that employed by Motherwell and St Mirren. Dusan Tadic is deployed as the 10 with two sitting midfielders behind him. The former Southampton and Ajax midfielder has complete positional freedom, he will look to drop into wide areas and link-up with the Fenerbahçe wing backs. If we see the same 4-2-4 set up for Rangers I'd be worried about the ability of Raskin/Diomande to keep an eye on the Serb given the amount of ground they will have to cover.

Even at 38, Dusan Tadic has played 40 games already this season, scoring 11 times and providing 15 assists.

That's before we address the two giant goal hungry elephants in the room. Fenerbahçe's front 2 is generally Edin Dzeko and Youssef En-Nesyri, the latter a £16m record signing from Sevilla. Between them they have 45 goals and 12 assists in all competitions this season. There probably isn't a better strike partnership left in the competition. Both forwards lack mobility but make up for it by being excellent finishers who are both extremely strong in the air. Whatever backline Rangers deploy will have their hands full with these two, fingers crossed both Souttar and Balogun are fit enough to start.

Youssef En-Nesyri and ex-Manchester City striker Edin Dzeko. The latter has 11 goals and assists in his 14 European matches this season, with a further 15 from 25 league appearances.

The largest threat facing Rangers will be the deliveries from wide areas and set pieces. Both wing backs have license to get forward and will generally look to deliver for either striker. Rangers fans would do well to avoid any flashbacks by looking up the career highlights of left wing back Filip Kostic.

Both Tadic and the Polish midfielder Szymanski are excellent set piece takers. Given Fenerbahçe will have both strikers joined in the box by Caglar Soyuncu and Milan Skriniar, both very aerially adept, I expect Rangers will need to be extra vigilant when defending any set plays.

ROOM FOR HOPE?

There's no doubt that this is an intimidating opposition for Rangers to face in the round of 16, but no team is unbeatable. It may surprise those who are familiar with Jose Mourinho's greatest sides to know that this Fenerbahçe team are bordering on porous at the back.

In 10 Europa League matches, they've scored 14 goals but also conceded 13. Why is this? Firstly, the wing backs fall much more in the mould of 'wingers that track back' rather than 'defenders that get forward'. A large number of the goals they've conceded in Europe this season have come from teams winning the ball and exploiting that space in wide areas earlier in transition. Hamza Igamane and Vaclav Cerny should relish seeing the space in the channels given that's where they tend to make the majority of their runs. If the Moroccan could find his shooting boots again, it might put Rangers back on something resembling the right path.

Secondly, given the 'free role' occupied by Dusan Tadic, the other two midfielders are often overworked and exposed. In fact, they have a lot in common with the Rangers midfield two. We need to be careful, if they get talking in the middle of the game they might unionise and strike mid-game, asking for better working conditions with less space to cover.

Teams have exploited this undermanning by getting runners from deep going beyond the frontline. Az Alkmaar did this to great effect when they beat the Turkish side 3-1. Rangers will likely struggle to do this if we choose to set up in the 4-2-4, given if Diomande were to try and get beyond we would be left with a 1 person midfield facing a potential counter attack. Hopefully this weakness will have been part of the managerial teams thought process and we could see a more balanced midfield 3 start, giving them more license to get beyond.

Fenerbahçe have occasionally reverted to a 4-4-2 when trying to stifle teams away from home this season. I don't think we will see this in either leg against Rangers, given the way Rangers have conceded goals so willingly in recent games. Approaching either leg cautiously would be a misread on the oppositions part.

ROUND - UP

Rangers face a tough test against Fenerbahçe in this European tie. Of course, they will hope that the "Ibrox in Europe" effect will play a big part come the return leg next Thursday evening, but Fenerbahçe are equally known for an intimidating home atmosphere. It will be crucial for Rangers to bring the tie back to Ibrox with no worse than a narrow defeat, if they are to have any hope of progressing into the Europa League Quarter Finals.