Gio van Bronckhorst insists his Rangers stars have the mental strength to end their miserable run by blowing away Dundee United at an expectant Ibrox on Saturday afternoon.
The Dutchman and his players are feeling the heat after a third heavy defeat on the spin against Napoli on Wednesday. But van Bronckhorst has demanded a repeat of the intensity his side showed against the Serie A leaders and reckons that should be enough to break down the resistance of the Premiership’s bottom side.
Back-to-back 4-0 defeats to Celtic and Ajax before Wednesday’s 3-0 loss to Napoli which saw Gers reduced to 10-men with the game still goalless after 55 minutes have piled the pressure on the Light Blues. Rangers haven’t lost four games in a row since 1985. But the Ibrox boss said: “Although we suffered another defeat I think mentally the players look really strong. That’s an aspect we need to have when switching back to the league and with a home game we are very determined to get back to winning ways.
"We need to switch because we had no game last week. We played two Champions League games in a row, which normally you don’t have.
“But we are prepared really well. We have to make sure we maintain our way of playing, especially the intensity and character we showed on Wednesday. We need to have that to get a good result at Ibrox.”
After claiming his side couldn’t compete with Champions League big guns in the wake of the Ajax mauling, the Dutchman was singing the praises of his players for doing just that against Luciana Spalletti’s side. He continued: “We are disappointed with the result but we can get a lot of positives out of the game.
“The way we started, until the sending off, we were competing really well with Napoli. And just as I thought the game might go our way in the second half the sending off and penalty - the three penalties we had to defend - cost us the game against a quality side. With one man less they had too much quality and made it very difficult for us.”
Rangers have no fresh injury problems ahead of the visit of United, who will have caretaker boss Liam Fox in charge for a third game since Jack Ross’ sacking. Van Bronckhorst has urged his side to break the Terrors’ resistance early and get the crowd onside.
He said: “Our first intention, of course, is to break it early in the game because that will make it easier for us. Then they have to open up also to find a goal. I think it’s key to have the same start as we did against Napoli. It’s very important.
“They will come here and try to upset us with their play. You always expect a very tough match at home with a quite compact defensively well organised team. But as I said before, we have to keep our standards. We know how to overcome these opponents. We have to show it.”
Meanwhile, Alfredo Morelos has been left out of the Colombia squad for their upcoming friendlies against Guatemala and Mexico. New Colombia boss Nestor Lorenzo has left the 26-year-old out of his squad for friendlies against Guatemala in New Jersey on September 24 and Mexico in Santa Clara, California, three days later which could be good news for van Bronckhorst with trips to face Hearts on October 1 and Liverpool in the Champions League three days later.
