Rangers will hope to make significant improvements when Livingston come to Ibrox on Wednesday night but David Martindale won’t make it easy.
A 3-0 defeat against Celtic at the weekend, who were down to 10-men for much of the match, shouldn’t be used to gauge how difficult a task it will be – as the saying goes, “styles make fights”.
If Rangers avoid the unthinkable and get past Livingston, a place at Hampden awaits, but David Martindale is fully aware of the opportunity that he has before him, as reported by The Daily Record.
Michael Beale almost couldn’t have asked for a worse team to face after the turgid Motherwell performance.
Livi will replicate the back five that the Steelmen used and will look to frustrate for as long as possible and the Gers boss will have to have more ideas than he produced at the weekend.
He will certainly have to have better ones.
Rangers tie sees Livingston motivation for David Martindale
Speaking ahead of the quarter-final clash, with Celtic out, Rangers are heavy favourites but Livingston and David Martindale are focussed on the job in hand:
“Going there is going to be difficult, both teams are going into it one game away from Hampden, Celtic have obviously been knocked out already so that gives every other Premiership club’s chances of success a boost.
“So there is that wee bit of added motivation for us and I’m sure Mick and his players will be looking to get the first piece of silverware under their belt. But we will be doing everything we can to get ourselves in the hat for the next round and book our place at Hampden.”
It’s not going to be pretty.
If Rangers can get an early goal against Livingston, you would like to think that Michael Beale would want his side to increase the tempo and put the tie to bed as soon as possible.
Players might be missing, but the team is still full of internationals as well as players who have made it to the Europa League final and won an invincible league title.
Anything other than a win, and the inevitable awaits.
