Rangers know that they will have to be at their best to progress against Athletic Bilbao in the Europa League.
As if Rangers’ abysmal record against Spanish teams wasn’t bad enough, Rangers will be without John Souttar and Mohamed Diomande for the first leg at Ibrox.
Athletic are also currently fourth in La Liga and have a talent strewn squad that will take some beating, with Nico Williams being tracked by Europe’s elite.
But strange things happen on Europa League nights at Ibrox and Ernesto Valverde has warned his side that they will need to improve ahead of the trip to Glasgow to face Rangers.
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Ernesto Valverde fires Athletic warning ahead of Rangers clash
Athletic Bilbao were held to a 0-0 draw with 14th place Osasuna in something of a local derby clash.
Whilst Real Sociedad are Bilbao’s biggest rivals, it would’ve taken Pamplona-based Osasuna less than two hours to travel to the Estadio de San Mames for the weekend’s La Liga tie.
Ernesto Valverde has always dreamed of facing Rangers and will live that out when Athletic come to Glasgow on the 10th of April.
But his Athletic Bilbao side were held to a stalemate by a resolute Osasuna who have gifted Barry Ferguson the blueprint for frustrating the Spanish outfit.
With an xG of only 0.7 for Athletic in the match, Valverde took aim at his team come full-time and insists that things have got to improve going forward.
“We wanted all three points, but we’ll take this point and move on,” Valverde told Athletic at full-time.
“You have to take advantage. There’s not a lot of difference between all the teams. We’re lucky to be in the position we’re in. We have to keep going and on Sunday we’ll be playing Villarreal.”
In comments which will be of great interest to Ferguson and his team, Valverde has also suggested that Osasuna disrupted Athletic’s free-flowing football with fouls and gamesmanship.
“It was tough for us because Osasuna defended well. It wasn’t a very fluid game,” Valverde said. “There were a lot of fouls. We lacked fluidity because of their good work. Derbies are competitive like that.”
Can Barry Ferguson’s dark arts help Rangers overcome Athletic?
Barry Ferguson has previously suggested that his Rangers team are ‘too nice’ and encouraged his players to get better at football’s dark arts.
When it comes to the Scottish Premiership, Rangers have routinely struggled against physical opposition who know how to waste time and wind up the Ibrox team.
“I’m not going to sit here and kid anybody on,” Ferguson explained before Dundee. “I thought we were far too nice and you can’t be nice at Rangers at times.
“As I said, when you step out on that park, every single team want to beat you and you need to stand up to that.”
What this effectively means that Rangers must do to Athletic what Scottish teams do to them. They have to disrupt the Spaniards’ flow, pick up smart yellow cards and frustrate the opposing team as much as they can.
Ferguson demanded the dark arts v Fenerbahce and will pull on the Osasuna result to get his Rangers team into the heads of Athletic Bilbao in order to disrupt their game.
