Press Conference: Gerrard & Goldson | 2 Oct 2019

[ian1964 10,591]

 

[JFK-1 1,690]

Apparently it will be only the second time we have played young boys the last being a cup winners cup qualifying round in 1977/78 resulting in a 1-0 win at Ibrox and a 2-2 draw away to go through on away goals.

 

Rangers v Young Boys Of Berne

European Cup Winners Cup Preliminary Round 1st Leg 17.8.1977

1-0

Attendance 30,000

Rangers Goalscorer, Greig.

 

The Rangers Team

McCloy, Jardine, Greig, Forsyth, Jackson, MacDonald, McLean, Russell, Parlane, Robertson, Cooper

Substitutes Used, Smith, MacKay

 

While I and I expect most people would accept a draw as an acceptable result obviously a win would be tremendous and despite the fact YB are clearly a useful side I feel it's doable.  On transfermarkt their squad value is estimated at around £60 million while ours around £44 million. And just in passing the yahoos listed at £87 million pretty much double ours and I would deem us capable of going to their patch and beating them too.

I feel confident it can be done because the team is playing well and what a record Gerrard has in Europe. And when you think about it Europe is what he was already more than familiar with rather than the tribulations he faced in becoming familiar with Scottish football.

 

He made 130 appearances in Europe for Liverpool scoring 41 goals in the process. I think it's fair to say he might be considered a bit of an expert when it comes to Europe. And what can be said about 23 games with only two losses. It's the type of statistic that means we can go into these games feeling a degree of confidence that we can take something from it. 

 

I have read that Gerrard declined an invitation to train on the astro turf and if that's true i'm wondering why he did that. Wouldn't it be better to have accepted it? I listened to an interesting discussion on the properties of plastic pitches recently.

As is probably well known they don't all respond the same to actual play. A pass dependent on contact with the surface can fall short on some of them but typically not on grass and not on some other plastic.

 

It was speculated that it can take 15 to 20 minutes to 'play into' the properties of an unfamiliar surface. And speculated further that Rangers should be extremely cautious in these first 15 to 20 till they really get the feel of it.

And having said all that it made me wonder why they would decide not to train on it.