Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
Rangers ‘daring to dream’ of going all the way in Europa League
STEVEN Gerrard says Rangers will dare to dream of going all the way in the Europa League.
The newly-crowned Scottish champions have ambitions of making their mark on the continent and Gerrard is refusing to put a limit on their targets after Thursday’s 1-1 last-16 draw with Slavia Prague.
The Czechs dumped Brendan Rodgers’ Premier League big guns Leicester out of the competition in the previous round – but Rangers more than held their own after a sticky start at the Eden Arena.
The result – and Filip Helander’s away goal – has put the Light Blues in a commanding position to progress to the quarter-finals following next Thursday’s second leg at Ibrox.
Gerrard said: “One hundred per cent we’ll dream.
“We’ve been dreaming since we qualified. There’s no harm in dreaming.
“But at the same time you’ve got to have respect for the opposition. You’ve got to realise the challenge and what’s coming up against you.
“This is a side who have gone away to a Premier League team and won comfortably, so in no way can we get carried away.
“It’s always nice to dream but we probably have to find our biggest performance of the season at Ibrox to get this done.”
Like Gers, Slavia are unbeaten in their domestic title race and lead the Czech First League by 11 points after 22 games.
Gerrard said: “They are a real good team, a real powerful team.
“They are effective, they play vertical. We knew they weren’t going to kill us from a technical point of view.
“But we knew we would have to match them physically in terms of their running power.”
He added: “I think this tie sits 50-50 and it’s a real exciting match to look forward to at Ibrox.”