It’s a measure of where Rangers are right now that just avoiding a proper hammering is seen as a positive. And there was probably an element of relief at escaping Naples with a 3-0 defeat given the fears pre-match and the scoreboard after quarter of an hour.
Giovanni van Bronckhorst and his players must have thought they were going to experience another Champions League horror show when Giovanni Simeone netted a quickfire double to put the Serie A leaders a couple of goals up in the Diego Armando Maradona Stadium.
But luckily for the Light Blues the Italians, who didn’t even start their big guns, didn’t seem in the mood to go for the jugular and that must be a sense of relief for Rangers, despite Leo Ostigard heading in a late third. However, by that time Rangers had at least put up a bit of a fight in their penultimate Group A clash and had chances to get back into the game with Alfredo Morelos missing a hat-trick of chances - one in particular a sitter. In the end, it was another defeat but not the mauling some had predicted and in the Ibrox side’s current state that is something to cling on to.
