Michael Beale has named his Rangers starting team to face Aberdeen with a League Cup Final spot up for grabs.
The Light Blues head to Hampden full of confidence having yet to taste defeat under the new management regime. Jim Goodwin's men were minutes away from defeating the Light Blues in their Pittodrie league meeting a couple of weeks back but an inspired Scott Arfield injury-time double off the bench secured a stunning 3-2 win for the Ibrox men.
It's semi-final weekend at the national stadium and holder s Celtic have already reached the showpiece after victory over Kilmarnock last night. Ange Postecoglou's men overcame horrendous rain and windy conditions to win 2-0 with Daizen Maeda and Giorgos Giakoumakis on target in Mount Florida. Focus now turns to Rangers and Aberdeen as the fight it out to join the Hoops in the final and compete for the first domestic trophy of the campaign.
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Speaking ahead of this one, Beale said: “This is my first cup game and I'm a very lucky man because we get to play in a semi-final in my first cup game. Over this week we have three games, one at a neutral venue and two away games.
“We don't want to be any further behind in the league, we want to be in a final and we want to be in the next round of the cup. Last year we improved our record because we won the Scottish Cup for the first time in a number of years and full credit goes to the players and Gio for that and I'm hoping that I can settle my own score in the League Cup.
“We're playing an opponent that knows us really well, we played them four or five games ago and they would have felt that they did well in that game.
“We're going to need everybody. Obviously, we have the midweek game late in the evening and then we travel up to Perth so it's an exciting week and a big week and what I've learned in my time at Rangers is there doesn't seem to be a week which isn't a big one.
“It is a real tough week and a real big week for us in our season and we'll have in excess of 60,000 Rangers fans visiting those games so our support is absolutely fantastic. It doesn't always feel like a neutral venue, even when we played away at Dundee United last week it was the Rangers fans I could hear.”
Rangers XI: McGregor, Tavernier, Goldson, Davies, Barisic, Lundstram, Jack, Tillman, Fashion JR, Kent, Morelos
Subs: McLaughlin, Kamara, Wright, Roofe, McCann, Arfield, King, Devine, Lowry
Aberdeen XI: Roos, McCrorie, Scales, Stewart, Shinnie, Miovski, Duk, Ramadani, Clarkson, Coulson, Kennedy
Subs: Lewis, Barron, Besuijen, Myslovic, Watkins, Hayes, Dncan, Richardson, Ramirez
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