So, what can we say about our upcoming opponents in the Europa League.
The answer is we lose to this team the result would be even more embarrassing than losing to Progres Leatherthongs.
Alashkert are a new team, and has signed most of its team on free transfers, and low-cost buys.
They were first formed in the year 1990 but then they went bankrupt in 2000, and only reformed again in the year 2011.
They then travelled rapidly back up through their two tier league system and in 2015 they played for the first time in the Europa League, where they played….St Johnstone, and won on an away goal, despite being reduced to 10 men.
This was in the horror years when Scottish teams couldn’t beat a team full of five year olds.
This year Alashkert are guaranteed to be the first-ever Armenian team to play in a European group stage. This is only because even if they lose against Rangers, they will drop in to the Conference League.
At this moment, their fans are not confident, and they believe Rangers will thrash them by four or five goals.
And looking at how they are set up to play, Rangers should be able to progress to the group stages, but only if we work as a team, and our midfield remember that they do need to help defend our goal, and they also need to learn to shoot at goal.
As for Alashkert, they are a hard-working team, but they are not Europa League level.
They have only came this far, because they beat Connah’s Quay in the Champions League First Round, and after losing to Sheriff, they were lucky and they had an easy draw for the Europa League 3rd round.
They can score on the counter, or through getting a corner, but tactically, they are slow in their movements, (none of their team is especially fast) and we really should have no trouble, if we play with intensity.
However, as we have seen, against Malmo, the Rangers team did not play as a unit, and our midfield was just AWOL.
So, anything can happen.
However, even if we score 10 against this team, this is a no-win situation.
Because even if we do hammer Alashkert, it will only remind us of what we could have done against Malmo.
If we lose….then we really are in deep trouble.
Last time we asked every one of you to give everything you could to carry our team over the line.
On our side we couldn’t have done more.
Now it is up to the team to earnour respect.