Gerrard Excited To See Players’ Performance

RANGERS’ latest Europa League adventure gets underway tomorrow, with Standard Liege the first opponents in the club’s third consecutive group stage in the competition.

The Light Blues travelled to Belgium this afternoon following a training session at Ibrox this morning, with manager Steven Gerrard excited by the challenge that lies ahead.

In the last two seasons in this tournament, Gers have come up against a number of top sides and performed exceptionally well, and Gerrard cannot wait to see how they do against Liege tomorrow night.

Speaking from Stade Maurice Dufrasne tonight, the manager explained: "This is a level which will find you out and it is a level where you can't carry individual players in or out of possession.

"I think the players, through the experience of the last couple of years know that, and only our best at this level will get us to where we want to get to.

"So I am really looking forward to seeing how we play tomorrow.

"I think the players have got a lot of confidence and belief from the experiences and some of the challenges that we have managed to get through over the last couple of years.

"Winning, and winning against good players and good teams breeds confidence and belief - you can show the players the evidence when we debrief games and when we have come through against teams where nobody has really given us a chance.

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"We can watch those games back and really find the reasons why we have had success against certain challenges and teams.

"I think a major part of us growing and evolving as a group has been coming on these Europa League challenges and managing to get some real, positive results which is great."

Gers go into the game off the back of Saturday’s Old Firm win at Parkhead which continued their consistent start to the season.

A key performer in that match was , and on him, Gerrard continued: "He has been fantastic for me since day one, and he has grown, he has evolved, he has improved and he has listened.

"There were different areas of his game where we felt we could shape him and help him to become a better player.

"But he is the one who has really gone out and worked at his game both in and out of possession.

"He is in a fantastic place and is playing with confidence - he was superb at the weekend but, for me, he has been really consistent for much longer than that.

"Glen is in a fantastic place and we want Glen around us for as long as possible."