The Sunday Post (Inverness)

Being back in Europe could be the making of Pedro’s Rangers

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Pedro Caixinha discusses training with his coaches, Jonatan Johansson (left) and Helder Baptista. Tomorrow will be a big day for them and (inset) St Johnstone manager, Tommy Wright. season to try to get into Europe, then you have to embrace it and do what you can to get through the four rounds.

It also gives you the chance to win games, build momentum and confidence.

It will give the punters a major boost to be turning up at Ibrox in the next two or three weeks to see their team winning, and some of the new signings making an immediate impact.

Winning breeds confidence and Pedro Caixinha will be well aware of that.

But there are so many variables to all of this. And the more and more I think about this early start, the more taken aback I am with the whole thing.

Caixinha needs to hope his players gel and he finds a suitable system.

How quickly will they settle? How sharp are they? Does the squad he has just now suit the formation he wants to play long-term? Or does he have to adjust that to suit the players he has at his disposal until he gets others in?

Whatever the answers to these questions, there is no time to waste.

Credit to the Rangers board for backing the Portuguese coach with the signings of the likes of Bruno Alves and Ryan Jack.

It’s now up to Caixinha and the players to prove they can produce the goods, and they will be under the microscope from day one. There will be no hiding place.

The Rangers fans wil quite rightly be demanding an improvemen­t on last season. They will want to be encouraged from the very first game and they will turn up in their numbers to see the team in the first home European qualifier.

The draw tomorrow won’t be regionalis­ed, but I suppose they will want to play a team from a country whose league has yet to start.

A team from Northern Ireland – Coleraine and Ballymena United are in the draw – would be ideal.

What they don’t want is to be drawn against a club that is around 10 competitiv­e games into their campaign, and have an extra sharpness about them. That would make life tricky for Rangers.

But they are a big club with a massive fan base and they need to start winning games quickly.

Many players, such as captain Lee Wallace and the experience­d Kenny Miller, have said the last campaign simply wasn’t good enough. They know they need to up it and they need to get off to a flying start.

Being involved in European qualifiers might turn out to be the making of them?

Let’s hope all the Scottish clubs get a bit of luck with the draw.

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