BLUE THUNDER
‘Crazy’ victory delights Gerrard but injuries leave Rangers sweating
RANGERS’ stunning comeback on a ‘crazy’ Europa League night in Belgium came at a cost with Steven Gerrard left sweating over injuries to James Tavernier and Kemar Roofe.
On a high-octane night, the Ibrox side beat Royal Antwerp 4-3 with two penalties from Borna Barisic adding to strikes from Joe Aribo and Ryan Kent against hosts who finished with ten men after Abdoulaye Seck was sent off late on.
However, captain Tavernier limped off with a knee injury after 24 minutes and striker Roofe picked up a fresh calf strain.
And Gerrard, who equalled Walter Smith’s 23 European wins with Rangers, admits he is concerned about the star duo.
He said: ‘Kemar has another calf injury, so that is a concern for us because he is getting too many of them at the moment. We will
need to look into that and get him to see the right people. He is very down and frustrated at the moment. ‘James never goes down. He never comes off the pitch, so that worries me as well. ‘We will analyse them in the next couple of days and hopefully they are not as bad as first feared. ‘I’m still waiting for the heart rate to come down. It was a fantastic game for the neutral. ‘Over the course we deserved to win but it was a crazy game of football to analyse. ‘Defensively, we haven’t been at it tonight, we haven’t been at our very best and we have conceded three goals. ‘That’s the second time at this level that we’ve done that, so that tells me we still have a lot of work to do in terms of our organisation. ‘It’s shown we have work to do defensively but that we have a lot of character in our team.’ Gerrard added: ‘We still have work to do in this game but we have put ourselves in a good position going into the second leg.’ Meanwhile, veteran midfielder Steven Davis praised Rangers for bouncing back after he conceded a controversial penalty deep into stoppage time for a ‘foul’ on Rafaelov, who netted from the spot after Felipe Avenatti had levelled with a header. ‘At the time I thought it was a little bit soft,’ said the Northern Ireland international. ‘The lad was quite clever in terms of how he played for it. ‘With VAR, the referee has decided it was a penalty and I was disappointed. ‘Luckily, we went on to create chances ourselves, got a couple of great opportunities and went on to win the game in the end. ‘Of course it was a test of character. Games are not always going to go exactly the way you want it to and you’re going to have to react to disappointments at different times in games. ‘I thought our attitude tonight in terms of that was excellent. It’s a hard-fought win and a good result to take back to Ibrox. ‘It was a roller-coaster to play in. It’s going to be a good second tie. ‘But we are in a good position and we are ready to put on a good performance.’