Kris Commons reckons the first 30 minutes at a raucous Ibrox are key to Rangers' Champions League salvage mission. Giovanni van Bronckhorst's side welcome Union Saint-Gilloise to Glasgow on Tuesday night in their bid to overturn a 2-0 first-leg deficit.
Rangers were left reeling in Belgium amid a dismal performance that left their group stage hopes on a knife edge. But they've been handed a welcome boost by Alfredo Morelos' goalscoring return in the weekend win over Kilmarnock, with the Colombian now pushing to start against Union.
Commons insists the opening half hour could be pivotal and believes Van Bronckhorst's side must lean on the Ibrox atmosphere to rattle their visitors. He pointed to Celtic staging a comeback against Shakhtar Karagandy in 2013 as the blueprint to follow. The former Parkhead star wrote in his Daily Mail column: "It's all about how Rangers start. The atmosphere will be electric and they have to feed off that and keep the fans with them.
"The Belgians won't have experienced anything like it. Far better teams than them have been intimidated by the atmosphere that the big clubs in Glasgow can generate on nights like these.
"If Rangers score in the first 30 minutes, I think the momentum will turn and they'll get through with something to spare. It's a matter of unsettling Union from the very first minute. You want to get them facing their own goal and remain under pressure. If they concede early, I could see them crumbling.
"But at the same time you don't need to be diving into silly challenges and being too aggressive. The last thing Giovanni van Bronckhorst needs is his side going down to ten men and that's going to make a tough task significantly harder. You can't win it within ten minutes but you can lose it. The energy in the ground has to inspire you. You can't get carried away.
"Celtic faced exactly the same scenario when we faced Shakhter Karagandy in 2013 and succeeded in coming back from two goals down. We did that by staying ice cool."
