Three Rangers stars are one slip away from suspension heading into Thursday evening’s clash against Feyenoord.
The Gers travel to Rotterdam for what will be their penultimate match of the group stages, having accumulated seven points across their previous four outings.
Six of those points came at home via victories over the Dutch side and Porto. Yet, despite only picking up one point from a possible six on the road so far, the general level of performance throughout the group stages should mean confidence is high.
Three players who have played close to every minute of every game, are Borna Barisic, Filip Helander and Alfredo Morelos.
El Bufalo has been Steven Gerrard’s most potent weapon, scoring in three of the four fixtures. Meanwhile, the other two, internationalists for Croatia and Sweden respectively, have been instrumental defensively. Barisic was outstanding in the home tie against Feyenoord, while Helander’s best display came away at Porto.
All three will start again at De Kuip – providing Barisic passes a fitness test – but they are all one booking away from suspension.
Having each picked up two cautions so far, a third would render them unavailable for the next fixture.
In this case, that would be the home clash against BSC Young Boys. However, yellow card tallies aren’t wiped after the group stages, they carry on up until the quarter-finals stage [UEFA.com].
Therefore, perhaps the best-case scenario is the Gers sealing qualification tonight and each player doing a Sergio Ramos and picking up an intentional booking.
That way, they would miss a dead-rubber against the Swiss champions, but there would be no suspension fears for any of them, heading into the knockout rounds.
