Originally published at: https://www.rangersnews.uk/match-preview/rangers-may-lack-knowledge-to-defeat-feyenoord-charlie-nicholas/
Sky Sports pundit Charlie Nicholas claims Rangers will struggle to beat Feyenoord this evening. The two sides face off in their opening appearances in Europa League Group G, with Porto hosting Young Boys in the group’s other tie. Feyenoord travel to Ibrox following a weekend victory over Den Haag. (Photo by Erwin Spek/Soccrates/Getty Images) It’s…
What Nicholas said is all correct. Every game in Europe will be hard and our results have not been great. There has been a defeat against Celtic, a last minute goal against Legia and Killie, a free kick needed for win against St Mirren and nil nil draws against Progress and Legia. I sometimes feel that this type of story is written to get Rangers fans angry and to cause some sort of backlash, sorry mate I’m not taking your bait. Gers will give a good account of themselves and I hope we get a result, but if not its because these games are really difficult and we have not exactly been on decent form. The Dutch will be better than any of the other teams we have faced so on current form we may struggle.
Rangers have played fourteen competitive matches so far this season - they have won eleven, drawn two (in ties they won on aggregate) and lost one. Regardless of how some of the results have come about, if that isn’t a good run of form, there are probably only one or two teams in the whole of Europe on a good run.
I haven’t totally slated Nicholas and I agree with him to a point that this will be a very tough game and a gauge on how much we have improved under Gerrard. In the opinion part of the piece, I merely suggest that it would be unwise to write this Rangers team off. Like yourself, i’m hopeful we’ll get a result.
No denying it’s a good run of form but we really have struggled in games we should be comfortable in, such as St Mirren, Kilmarnock and Livingstone even against Hibs we struggled initially. When up against better opposition such as Legia and Celtic it’s been poor. We have also spent over 11 million for this season so I think we should be doing better. I just don’t want us getting carried away and I think Nicholas was really only saying it as it is I don’t think its got anything to do with his " Celtic leanings". Also the wins include East Fife and St Joseph’s and we should be winning those games. You say we have had “an impressive start” I’m not that sure we have.