Michael Beale has named his Rangers side to face Raith Rovers at Ibrox this afternoon.
The Light Blues are bidding to join rivals Celtic and Scottish Championship outfit Inverness Caley Thistle as the next team in the semi-final of the Scottish Cup. Ange Postecoglou's men dumped out Hearts at Tynecastle in a convincing 3-0 win while the Highlanders knocked out Premiership opposition in the shape of Kilmarnock to reach Hampden.
It's now the turn of the holders with their second tier opponents standing in the way of a national stadium return. The Ibrox men lifted the famous old trophy last season and will be desperate to retain their crown this time around and land silverware for Beale in his first season. He joined late last year with his side nine points behind Celtic in the Premiership. That gap remains the same despite his unbeaten start to life in the dugout in the league with the champions matching his troops stride for stride.
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They already lost out in the League Cup Final to Celtic and will want to make amends in this competition. Speaking ahead of the showdown, Beale said: "Going into the game at Hibs, it's fair that the outside observers thought it would be an interesting evening for us. We performed ever so well on the night, but it's just three points and I want nothing less in terms of the standard of performance this weekend. It will be a completely different challenge.
"Every game that we're involved in, we're working in training to grow and evolve in different ways. You have saw it go well, like in midweek, and in other moments it's been a bit indifferent. We're focussed on the work and where we're going. In the short-term future, there's the league and Scottish Cup. Every game counts here. We're in a really privileged position and every time we play, we need to uphold that."
He continued: "What counts is that we have a quarter-final this weekend at home. A home draw in the quarter-final is a favourable draw for Rangers, and we need to make sure that we're at our best and get ourselves back to Hampden for a semi-final. We have to be focused on retaining our trophy.
"We won the trophy last year so there's been an extra focus for this competition from back in pre-season. It's a trophy we want to retain and it's the last game of this season so we want to get back to Hampden, firstly for the semi-final, and then push on to the final. Ultimately, our aim is to win the competition and that's really important for us. It's important that the group continue to show improvement."
RANGERS XI: McGregor, Tavernier, Goldson, Davies, Barisic, Lundstream, Raskin, Cantwell, Fashion JR, Kent, Colak.
Subs: McLaughlin, Ridvan, Hagi, Jack, Souttar, Kamara, Morelos, Wright, Arfield.
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