Rangers vs Ludogorets Razgrad preview: Enough is Enough
Rangers have their best possible chance of registering a win in Europe this season with the visit of Ludogorets to Ibrox stadium.
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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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!
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.