Trpsovsky admits Rangers clash left Slavia low on ‘strength’
Slavia Prague boss Jindřich Trpišovský admitted that his side’s Europa League clash with Rangers left his side short of strength this weekend.
Slavia and the Gers played out a closely fought and aggressive draw in last week’s first leg and Trpsovsky claims the clash took a lot of Slavia’s ‘strength’.
The Slavia boss spoke after his side’s weekend game about how the fixtures a piling up for the club and how his players were left shattered after Thursday’s draw.
Trpsovsky is quoted by iDNES as saying, “It’s always a sensitive topic. Our program is accumulating, we have hard matches behind us, travel and rotation are necessary.
“In addition, we only had two days off after Thursday, which causes problems for some. Alex Bah, for example, is still getting used to it, so this time he started in the process.
“The match with Rangers, according to the data available to us, took a lot of our strength, so we are glad that we managed to involve some other players as well.”
It seems as though whatever sports science or ‘data’ Slavia are operating with has shown that Thursday’s game really took it out of the Czech side.
We ran them into the ground and this could give us a significant advantage in this week’s reverse leg.
Rangers also had the weekend off so we’ll be well-rested for this Thursday’s crunch game.
We already have the advantage in one sense as we have an away goal to our name and as long as we keep a clean sheet this week we will progress.
That’s easier said than done however as Slavia hitman Nicolae Stanciu scored a brace in his side’s 3-0 win over FK Mladá Boleslav this weekend.
He scored his side’s first against us last week and he’ll be looking to do the same at Ibrox though after playing in both games he shouldn’t be at 100% if Trpsovsky’s comments are anything to go by.
In other Rangers news, Alex McLeish hugely impressed by emerging Nathan Patterson