Rangers fans can look forward to yet more Thursday night football after the Ibrox side qualified for the Europa League.
The Gers drop straight into the group stages of European football’s secondary competition after suffering defeat to Dynamo Kyiv in Champions League QR3.
With Rangers going down 3-1 on aggregate following a controversial red card shown to Brazilian left-back Jefte, attentions are now firmly focused on the Europa League.
But with Rangers now set to play on Thursday evenings instead of Tuesdays or Wednesdays, the club face fixture chaos with several games to be rescheduled as a result.
Europa League fixture changes beckon
Rangers will now play eight games in the revamped Europa League group stages.
Excluding match day one, which will be played across Wednesday and Thursday evenings, the remaining seven games will be played on Thursday evenings.
As a result several matches on domestic duties which were originally scheduled to kick off on Saturday afternoons will now be rescheduled to the Sunday.
Obviously this has huge ramifications for the first half of the season with Rangers fans already suffering from the upheaval of moving to Hampden.
Whilst Rangers are aiming to be back at Ibrox in time for the clash with Hibs after matchday one, there remains every chance the club will still be at the national stadium.
In total, six Rangers home matches are likely to be rescheduled as a result of dropping down to the Europa League, with two away games affected.
Here’s the list of the Europa League group stage match dates and the corresponding Rangers fixture from the following weekend:
- Matchday one: Wed/Thu 25/26th September – Rangers v Hibs (H) on Saturday 28th September likely to be rescheduled for Sunday 29th
- Matchday two: Thu 3rd October – Rangers v St Johnstone (H) on Saturday 5th October likely to be rescheduled for Sunday 6th
- Matchday three: Thu 24th October – Rangers v St Mirren (H) on Saturday 26th October likely to be rescheduled for Sunday 27th
- Matchday four: Thu 7th November – Rangers v Hearts (H) on Saturday 9th November likely to be rescheduled for Sunday 10th
- Matchday five: Thu 28th November – St Johnstone v Rangers (A) on Saturday 30th November likely to be rescheduled for Sunday December 1st
- Matchday six: Thu 12th December – Rangers v Aberdeen (H) on Saturday 14th December likely to be rescheduled for Sunday 15th
- Matchday seven: Thu 23rd January – Dundee United v Rangers (A) on Saturday 25th January likely to be rescheduled for Sunday 26th
- Matchday eight: Thu 30th January – Rangers v Ross County (H) on Saturday 1st February likely to be rescheduled for Sunday 2nd
Rangers not ready for Champions League?
The cost of Rangers’ failure to qualify for the Champions League has already made plenty of headlines.
But the club will have to make do with the Europa League and now all attentions are firmly on who Rangers are set to add to the squad before the window closes.
It has been a disastrous summer in many respects with more than just the Champions League failure currently hanging over the squad.
Rangers look decidedly undercooked in a number of areas and were woefully underprepared for the Champions League qualifiers.
TalkSPORT duo Andy Townsend and Simon Jordan have been speaking about this latest Rangers calamity and both agree that a run in the Europa League could be a blessing in disguise.
Townsend in particular has urged the club to dust themselves down and shift their focus onto a run in UEFA’s secondary competition.
“I think they are better suited to playing in Europa League,” said Townsend. “I think that they’ve proven that. They’ve shown that in recent seasons.
“I mean, I watched that run when they played Eintracht Frankfurt in the final, and watched a lot of the games that year and they were very, very good in that.
“Yes, financially, of course, the money is very, very important to the club, but from a fans point of view in terms of what they’re witnessing, there’s nothing worse than seeing your team completely overwhelmed in the Champions League group phases and that’s been the case for Rangers a little bit whenever I’ve watched them in the Champions League.
“So if they get over the disappointment of last night, I mean the sending off is just the most ridiculous joke of a decision I think I’ve ever seen, but they’re going to have to get over that and try and bounce back in in Europa League.”
Rangers certainly don’t look ready to compete at the highest level and one suspects we’ve avoided a few hammerings by failing to qualify for the Champions League.
But that doesn’t mean the club’s latest failure doesn’t still sting and the situation has just added to the general feeling of discontent lingering around Ibrox.
