Europa League progress is now firmly in our hands after drawing with Brondby in Denmark.
Lyon held up their end of the bargain by beating Sparta Prague 3-0 so, hopefully, they will take it easy on us when we play them in France now that they have guaranteed top spot.
Sparta are up next at Ibrox in a near winner-takes-all encounter, any win by two goals or more secures us second place on the head-to-head record, if Rangers win 1-0 then it could go to the last day and goal difference.
After a difficult start to the campaign we have recovered well, although Steven Gerrard will be disappointed not to take all six points agains Brondby, he can at least be happy with how his team dug deep to get two positive results and get us back into the group, that we only conceded an own goal against them should also be considered.
Under Gerrard it’s easy to forget just how far he has taken us in Europe, we now expect to get results away from home against teams that previously we would have slipped up against, the Danes could yet do us a favour when they play Sparta on match day six.
The primary objective this season is winning the Scottish Premiership given the financial rewards on offer for qualifying automatically for the group stages of the Champions League, however, progressing in the Europa League could have a big say on our budget in the January transfer window.
For all that fans want to prioritise one competition over the other, Gerrard simply doesn’t have that luxury at the moment – the players he threw on as subs proving how much success on the continent means to him and the club, it wasn’t quite enough, but it at least keeps as in the race.