Rangers ranked as Europa League powerhouses with projected opponents placing Ibrox club on coefficient podium

Rangers have already turned their attentions to next season and European football with another possible assault on the Europa League likely.

The Ibrox side face a summer of uncertainty wit the club braced for a takeover led by an American consortium fronted by Andrew Cavenagh and 49ers Enterprises. First on the agenda for the incoming US owners will be appointing a new permanent manager, with interim boss Barry Ferguson leaving his role on Sunday evening.

Rangers made it into the top 24 of the new League Phase format with ease this season - finishing 8th in the standings - and were narrowly knocked out at the quarter-final stage by Athletic Bilbao after losing 2-0 on aggregate. New projections from Football Rankings have Rangers making the league phase again next season, and they are among the favourites to win the competition.

Based on coefficient scores, only Serie A duo AS Roma and FC Porto would boast higher numbers and join the Premiership champions in pot one. Here’s the scale of the task that could potentially await Rangers, with two teams to be drawn from each pot.

Who Rangers could face in the Europa League

Pot 1

AS Roma, Porto, RANGERS, Feyenoord, LOSC Lille, Dinamo Zagreb, Real Betis, Shakhtar Donetsk, RB Salzburg

Pot 2

Aston Villa, Fenerbahce, Braga, Lyon, PAOK, Viktoria Plzen, Young Boys, Slovan Bratislava, FC Basel

Pot 3

FC Midtjylland, Legia Warsaw, Anderlecht, SC Freiburg, Ludogorets Razgrad, Dynamo Kyiv, Sturm Graz, Crystal Palace, FCSB

Pot 4

OGC Nice, Bologna, Lech Poznan, Celta Vigo, VfB Stuttgart, Panathinaikos, Besiktas, Go Ahead Eagles, KRC Genk

Barry Ferguson verdict on Rangers Europa League quarter-final exit this season

The recently departed caretaker boss .... He said: “I feel the hurt. Disappointed. The workrate has always been there since I’ve come in, just a bit of quality at times we didn’t produce which they (the players) are disappointed in as well, not just myself. Overall, it’s tough to go out at the quarter-finals and we just need to go away and reflect on this.

“I expected more in terms of quality. Look, the effort was there, as I said. We’re just really disappointed. We had to make a change after 22/23 minutes, you need to shuffle the pack again and at the start of the second half Leon (Balogun) has to go off, you need to change formation. So it’s not ideal, but I’m not going to use that as an excuse. We’ve got to do better with the ball, we were a bit sloppy at times. But I’ll never criticise the guys effort.

“It’s been a really good run, but we believed when we came here that we were going to progress to the semi-finals. It’s not happened and we’re going to need to lick our wounds for a bit. That’s part and parcel of football, it’s tough to take. But when you’re at a club like Rangers, you’ve got to move on quickly.”