Rangers boss Giovanni van Bronckhorst has brought out his first piece of positive defiance in the Champions League by pointing at the manner of the loss to Napoli to suggest Rangers have a real chance of doing damage agains Liverpool.
The Ibrox boss, under fire for negative tactics for the majority of his Champions League campaign so far, used the home fixture v Serie A’s pace setters as an example of just what it took for the Mediterranean giants to take home maximum points.
He said:
“We are at home and we have been strong here and we showed that against Napoli. It took three penalties and a red card before we conceded the goals.”
Remember, even Serie A legend Alessandro Del Piero was in awe of Napoli for getting the result at one of ‘Europe’s hardest places to go’ and as a result there’s no question the Italian league leaders had to extend themselves to get a win.
And Gio isn’t wrong, three penalties, including two saves (albeit one scored off the rebound) and that red card before the home side finally succumbed.
So there’s a bit of an air of ‘nothing to lose’ now about Rangers in this tournament, and the fact we have two more home fixtures in which we can believe in taking some points.
It’s advantage us.