With the news now out that Rangers have flown to Armenia with a dramatically thinned squad, it is natural to look at those who are left in the team.

We at Ibrox Noise just want to say to those who are left behind….get well soon!

Covid19 is no joke, and we hope all come out of this OK.

For those who will be taking to the field, let’s be clear, this has become a slightly difficult game.

The reason is we are going to Armenia without our tactical genius, Michael Beale. This means we now have to rely on our players, on the field, to immediately adapt to any tactical changes that our opponent makes.

However, even with the loss of Steven Gerrard, Michael Beale, James Tavernier, Calvin Bassey, Allan McGregor, Scott Wright, Jon McLaughlin, and Ryan Kent, we should still easily beat Alashkert.

Last week Alashkert were playing way above themselves, and I do not see them being able to lift their game any further.

They will continue to rely on hitting us on the break, and hoping for a mistake and a goal from a corner, but as we saw last week they are not fast with the ball, they often ran into our players and they were very easily dispossessed, but we just could not take full advantage of their mistakes.

They will also hope they have luck with the choice of referee. As we seen last week, though the ref was very quick to send one of our team off, he was not so quick to dish out the second yellows to any of the Alashkert players…it’s just an observation, just a casual observation.

A simple draw, or win will see us going through to the Europa League group stage for the 4th consecutive time, and perhaps, this time, we can go further than a last 16 finish.

The stage is set.

EDIT: this article was compiled hours ago today before the news Beale travelled was broken. Till then all information claimed he hadn’t. So, an error on our part and we retract the sentiments.