Predicted Rangers XI vs Tottenham: Clement makes a change that will divide opinion as 4 dropped
Here’s who we think will start for Rangers against Tottenham.
Rangers are at Ibrox on Thursday night to take on Tottenham.
It’s a glamour game in the Europa League for the Ibrox club, who have Celtic in the Premier Sports Cup final to think about on Sunday. With that in mind, we predict four changes, two enforced with Danilo and Ianis Hagi not eligible for Europe.
Leon Balogun and Hamza Igamane are the others who drop out. Two strikers have been used in 6-0 and 3-0 wins over Kilmarnock and Ross County latterly, but in a move that would divide opinion, boss Philippe Clement goes back to one up top against elite opposition.
Clement said: “Everything can be bridged in one night. I had the luck, and it’s not only luck, it’s also a lot of hard work, as a player and as a manager, to have several nights where the gap was amazingly big.
“And those are also the best nights. If you then perform and you get the results, those are also the nights that you remember all of your life. Those are also the moments that, as a player, you remember your team-mates really well.
“The moments of success, the moment of doing something special. So in that way, I hope the players can give themselves and as a team a special night. For example, with Brugge winning 1-0 in the Champions League away to AC Milan, the team that the year before won the Champions League with Dida, Cafu, Costacurta, Maldini, Seedorf, Shevchenko, Inzaghi, and a few really good guys on the bench also.
“So that was a really special evening. And still, if we meet each other, and it doesn’t happen so much, people still talk about that evening together. So I had a few of those. Rangers have also several of those in the history and those are the special evenings. So it’s a really nice stage for my players.”
Here’s our predicted Rangers XI for the game.
Rangers predicted XI
Butland; Tavernier, Propper, Souttar, Jefte; Raskin, Barron, Diomande; Cerny, Dessers, Bajrami.