Antonio Colak has urged Rangers to keep the head in the Easter Road cauldron on Wednesday and ensure the only “chaos” is in Hibs’ defence.
The Ibrox side threw away two points on their last visit to Leith in which they were reduced to nine men before losing an equaliser deep into stoppage time. John Lundstram and Alfredo Morelos saw red as bedlam descended not for the first time in the explosive fixture. Now, with Hibs on the back of a seven-game unbeaten run, Lee Johnson’s side are looking to inflict another huge blow to any lingering title hopes Rangers may have.
But Colak insists keeping it cool is key to emerging from the powderkeg with three points. Morelos has more than once been caught up in a volatile run of games between the two but his running battles with Ryan Porteous are a thing of the past following the defender’s move to Watford. Colak could well be preferred to the Colombia international, though, after returning to the starting line-up for the weekend win over Kilmarnock.
And the Croatian hitman said: “It’s a tough game. They are a team playing with confidence again and it’s always tough to play at their stadium. But we know that when we play at our level, we will outperform them. So we want to take the three points back. The last game was a crazy game.
“We had a really good game after the first red card but then we conceded a goal in the last minute to draw 2-2. Now we want to play a new game, to play better and get the three points. We don’t want to create any chaos, that’s the thing. We maybe want to bring chaos in the opponent’s half with our game. But over the 90 minutes we want to dominate. We don’t just want to do that in either the first or the second half. We want to be really confident about our own game and stick to our plan, the one that the gaffer wants. It’s really important for us.”
Colak reckons opposition teams set out to ruffle Rangers’ feathers in a bid to unsettle Michael Beale’s side. But having survived trips to Pittodrie and more recently Tynecastle without any damage, the striker is confident they have the mentality to take three points at Easter Road too.
He said: “The other teams will try to find a way to hurt us and they will try to bring that chaos we’re talking about. They will try to get the help of their fans to make us nervous and make us not be as confident as we want. That’s what happens but I saw our game against Hearts when we dominated the game from the first minute. I know we will have the same work rate on Wednesday night and hopefully the same result.”
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