Rangers warned over Plzen approach as Ibrox stars told 'we have to be ready for everything'

Daily Record

a day ago

Russell Martin and his troops hold a 3-0 lead but go into the game off the back of more dropped points domestically
Three goals to the good and just 90 minutes away from the Champions League play-offs, some Rangers players might be forgiven for thinking they are heading into the clash with Viktoria Plzen with the pressure off.
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Russell Martin insists they should think again.
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His team may have taken a huge step towards securing a multi-million pound final eliminator for European football's top tournament with their 3-0 win last week, but they stumbled two back domestically with yet another dismal display in Saturday's Dundee draw.
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And for that reason alone, the scrutiny on this new Light Blues line-up will be as intense as it has been at any stage this summer since Martin arrived looking to rip up the Ibrox playbook and install his own bold vision.
'No would be the word,' said the new Ibrox coach when asked if the pressure levels would be lower on Tuesday at the Doosan Arena in Plzen. 'We play for a club where you can't ease off ever.
'We've got a sold out away end and it's a big night for us after being a bit disappointing on Saturday with a few things.
'Hopefully we'll see some stuff that we didn't do well enough come out and do it better and then bring lots of the stuff from the first leg that we brought to the party at Ibrox.
'So no. It's my job on the training pitch to not come off the players one bit at any point. Even when we get into a flow and it starts looking really brilliant, which I'm convinced it will be at some point.
'It's my job to make sure we stay on them all the time, to keep growing.
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'And tomorrow night is just a part of that. So, there's no easing, there's no talking about that at all. It's about coming here to try and win a game.'
For the longer-serving members of the Gers squad, the sights and sounds of a toxic Ibrox are nothing new.
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But for the nine fresh faces who have arrived over the past six weeks, Sunday was their first taste of the Govan grumbles.
It remains to be seen if the new recruits react better than the teams of old who repeatedly buckled under the weight of expectation.
But Martin certainly thinks his men will be better for Saturday's shock to the senses.
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'I think everyone has a different experience,' he said. 'We've got guys coming from the Premier League, the Championship, from different leagues, and it's different for everyone.
'Also, it's different in different positions with the expectation and all this stuff.
'First and foremost, it definitely helped us in terms of quality and character every day of training.
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"I don't think we expected anyone to be 9/10 out of 10 every game, especially so early on in the process.
'This would literally be the last bit of pre-season right now if we were working down the road that we'd been used to, so they've been thrown in at the deep end for sure.
'I think they've done great, really well.
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'I think they'll grow into the season, they'll grown into being in this club, they've worked out already what the expectations are.
'They've had a brilliant night, or a couple in Europe already. They've also had a few tough moments in the league.
'So I don't think they've had a better preparation for becoming Rangers players, they've experienced every bit of it already.
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"But they're really resilient. They have a lot of character, they're really good players first and foremost and they're really going to help us over the course of the season.
'There's way more to come, the more they get used to what we're asking them to do.
'Tomorrow night gives us another chance to really show what we can bring onto the pitch.'
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Rangers started slowly again on Saturday and were then left playing catch-up with 10 men as Steven Pressley's side snatched a lead.
Gers finally dragged themselves level late on but it was yet another afternoon when the Light Blue legions accused their team of wasting time by failing to strike out with purpose and intent from the off.
It's an accusation that has been levelled at successive line ups.
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But Martin said: 'I think it's a really easy fix.
'We have a really clear process. We have to learn from everything whether we win, we draw.
'The guys haven't been beaten in five games, and there's a few really tough games in there.
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'So they showed a real mentality to not get beaten with 10 men.
'But there's some real key fundamentals there against a team that were sitting a bit lower, a bit deeper in defence.
'They defended well in numbers.
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'But we have to do a lot more to disrupt, especially early in the game, because if you score early in the game, it changes the context of the game completely.
'For us, we're doing it differently to the previous manager and the previous manager before that.
'Everyone comes with their own ideas.
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'It was the first time we had a chance to come up against that, and we'll be better for it.
'That's what we have to do. We have to learn and improve. So, I'm convinced that will happen.'
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Tomorrow, however, the onus will be on Plzen to take the initiative after Djeidi Gassama's double and Cyriel Dessers' penalty put Gers firmly in control of the third round qualifier last week.
'Goals change ties and games, so we have to start the gamer really well ourselves,' said Martin.
'They have, I guess, a nothing-to-lose approach. So, we have to be really ready for that.
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"If we have a setback in the game, which is not part of the plan, we have to respond in the way we did against Panathinaikos.
'I loved the way the players responded to that. And I really enjoyed the way the players responded to going down to 10 men on Saturday.
'There are showing togetherness. They have to keep growing, keep building. The spirit has to keep growing and building.
'But the plan is to not have a tough start. We need to start the game as well as we possibly can. But we have to be ready for everything.'