To be honest, it seems unlikely. Despite Rangers patchy form they’ve remained fairly solid at Ibrox. Yes, Hibs horsed them at home but that is their only home defeat so far. Celtic and Porto have both been defeated there whilst a few teams have received doings.
We did not play well last week and Terry Butcher will have to decide who to drop, if anyone. One choice that has been made for him is at the right back position – Brian McLean is not allowed to play against Rangers (not unreasonably) and he will probably be replaced by Martyn Corrigan. The other players who will be particularly anxious about their places are Clarkson and McDonald – neither were convincing last week and Jim Hamilton’s early season form was impressive. Does he return to the side and if so for whom? Skippy and Hamilton made a great combination but McDonald looks like he could do with a boot up the backside and a spell on the bench. Decisions decisions!
Rangers have given us a bit of a lesson in our last meetings, especially at Ibrox where we were twice beaten 4-1 last season. Rangers are several points behind the league leaders and they will be well aware that another slip up will all but end their league challenge as early as October! They will be hampered by the absence of suspended Krygiakos but likely replacement Marvin Andrews has a tendency to play well against us.
Can we do it? Well yes…but a vast improvement is needed, not only from last week but from all of our recent games against Rangers. Novo and Buffel being out is good news for us but Dado Prso has ran rings round our defence recently. It is unlikely that we will be able to keep them out altogether but we might be able to sneak one ourselves – we’ll miss the chance to go level on points with Rangers but we’ll be over the moon with a 1-1 draw.