Kevin Thomson issues Rangers stark European ‘pressure’ warning
Kevin Thomson has urged Rangers to live up to the pressure of playing in Europe after this season’s success.
Giovanni van Bronckhorst’s side lost to Eintracht Frankfurt on penalties in the Europa League final – ending a brilliant journey for both the players and the fans.
After crashing out in Kaunas after the Gers’ 2008 European success, the Light Blues legend warned the current players to avoid doing the same.
He told the Daily Record: “To be successful at the Old Firm you can’t rest on your laurels. You can’t think you were a good player last week so it’s OK. You have to do it every game at Rangers.
“There’s always pressure at Ibrox, even in friendlies. The fans demand you win.”
Thomson said: “No matter who Rangers are drawn against, people expect you to go through, especially now after the results they’ve had recently.
“Of course, they will back themselves. It won’t be easy.
“But they will have belief as they’ve been great in Europe these past few years.”
No chance.
After the season these players have just had you would imagine they will simply kick it up a notch next season.
Of course, a lot of what they can do in the next campaign will be determined by how well van Bronckhorst and co navigate the transfer window over the summer.
The Bears’ squad wore terribly thin at times this season and they will certainly need to bring in several quality players to maintain this momentum – especially if there are more departures with all of their expiring loan players looking set to leave.
But, that is some season these players have just enjoyed and they will be hungry for more.
The boss did terrifically in his first half a season in charge back at Ibrox and he surely won’t let these levels slip.
Rangers proved themselves to be a force in the cups and in Europe, last season and van Bronckhorst will undoubtedly want to emulate that domestically in the league too.
In other Rangers news, a Sky journalist has predicted a big-name player to be done at Rangers after his Instagram post.