Qualifying from group A was always going to be a difficult task for Rangers in the Champions League, not just because of the gulf in finances between us and the other teams or because we have a lengthy injury list, but because the other teams simply have better players.
More often than not, stronger teams will come out on top, it’s the same in Scotland for us. Our Europa League form has been impressive over the last few years but there have still been results that haven’t gone our way – there is no such thing as an easy game and the Champions League is a further step up from what we are used to.
Free headers will be scored, slack passing will be punished and, if the work rate isn’t put in, you’ll never see the ball. Ajax might have deeper pockets but, as we showed against PSV Eindhoven, we can compete at their level, which only makes the manner of the display in Amsterdam even more frustrating.
After one game, against a good side, it’s too early to write us off, even with Napoli flexing their muscles with an equally impressive display against Liverpool we shouldn’t just accept our place as whipping boys, however, talkSPORT’s Simon Jordan, as reported by Football Scotland, believes that we are only there to make up the numbers:
“No, what you’re doing is getting a big bag of money from coming up against the elite of European football.
“Rangers are not at this level. They were always going to get knocked out at the group stages.
“They are making up the numbers like a lot of teams do, who come from countries who are not in the same powerful position as some of the other teams.”
There are three teams that we faced in last season’s Europa League in the group stages of the Champions League, we beat two of them and only lost to the other on penalties, black and white evidence that we do deserve to be playing at level.
We might not be able to compete with the top teams but the standard of our group has to be considered, there is only one other that could claim to be as hard with us as Europa League finalists and the “worst” team in the group.
Rangers, and Giovanni van Bronckhorst, need to use this as a positive, paint the picture of underdogs and go for it in the other games. Do what we did to Borussia Dortmund away, to RB Leipzig and Red Star Belgrade at home, we might not qualify out of the group but we will at least prove that we are more than there just to be the whipping boys.