Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
Gers will fight to the end to keep Europa bid alive insists Gerrard
STEVEN Gerrard has vowed Rangers will battle to the end as they look to salvage their Europa League campaign in Germany on Thursday.
The Ibrox men kicked off the new Scottish Premiership season with victory over Aberdeen on Saturday but they still have last season’s European campaign to complete after emerging from lockdown.
They head to the BayArena trailing Bayer Leverkusen 3-1 from March’s last-16 first leg – but Gerrard still retains hope that Gers can progress to the quarter-finals.
He said: “We respect the scoreline but while we’re representing Rangers we’ll fight to the end.
“If we can’t qualify, we want to win the game on Thursday.
“We want to go there and show everyone we’re capable of playing at that level.
“We’ll play the game in isolation and try to give a good account of ourselves.”
The Light Blues will travel with confidence after Ryan Kent’s goal got them off and running with a 1-0 win behind closed doors at Pittodrie.
Rangers dominated the first half but did get it their own way after the break.
But Gerrard was pleased to see his side pick up just their fourth win in 11 attempts against the Dons under his watch.
He said: “We’ve been back for six or seven weeks, we’ve won five games and kept five clean sheets.
“I didn’t see (the empty stadium) affecting us.
“At times we didn’t look as nice on the eye – but we’re not always going to be able to do that.
“The important thing is that we don’t concede goals or let teams take points away from you.”