All eyes will be on Ibrox for the round of 16 second-leg, with Rangers currently leading 3-1, and the head coach insists his side are ready to stand up to the challenge of Jose Mourinho’s Fenerbahce.
Speaking to the media at this afternoon’s press conference, he said: “I know what it is like here on European nights and as a footballer you have got to want to play in front of this crowd.
“The place is electric, and we need to light that fire in the stands. As a manager, I can’t wait, you have got to be excited about this. We have got to embrace the challenge that is in front of us as a group and my players are ready for that.
“I still think there are areas we can improve and that is what we have tried to do over the last three days. We are under no illusions that it is going to be a different game, Fenerbahce will be hurting, I know that and my players are well aware.
“We have prepared in the right manner, there might be one or two tweaks we will just need to wait and see but it has been a good three days. That is the first time I have really had time with the players to go and work on certain things and they have worked ever so hard so that is all I can ask as a manager.”
It was an impressive display last Thursday in Istanbul, and Ferguson was asked about the tag of favourites given the two-goal lead heading into the home game.
He continued: “I would rather have had another couple of goals if I am being honest with you, it is what it is.
“That is the pressure, and you have got to handle pressure when you are at Rangers. That is something that the squad will admit they have not handled too well at times, but at other times they have handled the pressure really well, so we are not thinking about we are favourites, or they are favourites.
“We have got a game that we have to go and take head on because what an opportunity we have got to go into the last eight but we have also got to be respectful that we are coming up against a very good team.
“I expect them to come for us because they are 3-1 down so we are prepared for that. They have guys that can hurt you from the wide areas, they like to get balls into the box so my back two, three or five, or whatever it is going to be needed to be prepared for that. We have covered all sorts of scenarios as you have to do when you are playing against very good teams.
On his squad, Ferguson provided an update on Robin Propper, who had to come off injured with a head-knock in the first-leg. He added: “Robin has done a couple of training sessions, he has not been with the team, but he was with the team today.
“There have been one of two slight issues with others, ideally, I would love to have everybody available but that’s the way it goes sometimes so I’ll just need to wait until tomorrow morning, see how they wake up and hopefully I’ll have a full squad to pick from.
“That is why you carry a squad, that is why it is important that the guys who have not been involved are taking the information on but as I said I just need to wait until tomorrow and hopefully I get good news rather than bad news.”
On what it would mean to progress in the competition, Ferguson continued: “It is not about me, it is about the whole club and to get to the last eight would be a fantastic achievement but we have still got 90 minutes to play against a very good team.
“It is easy to get carried away when you have a performance like we did last Thursday, but there’s no chance I was allowing that to happen. The players had a couple of days to go away and spend a bit of time with their families which was well earned, but they knew coming back there’s a job half done, and we need to complete that job tomorrow.”