The Gers boss reflected on Wednesday evening’s first home group stage match of the European campaign and expressed his delight with the level of passion and momentum that was shown throughout the squad against the Italian side.
Speaking exclusively to RangersTV ahead of the anticipated match at Ibrox, he said: "Of course, we are disappointed with the result, but I think we can take a lot of positives from the game. The way we started until the sending off, I thought we were competing very well with Napoli and thought the game might have just gone our way in the second half. The sending off and the penalties cost us the game against a quality side like Napoli with one man less, they have too much quality to make it very difficult for us.
"I was very pleased with the performance because we knew we needed to have a lot of intensity in the game, the way we played compared to the week before against Ajax we showed a much higher level in play. The intensity was also there, speed of passing and movements, we created some good chances to open up the score. For us, it was a game that we played really well but, in the end, we didn’t take any points.
"Although we suffered a defeat, I think mentally the players look really strong. That’s an aspect that we need to have when we switch back to the league, with the home game we are very determined to get back to winning ways."
The Dutchman looked ahead to the squad’s upcoming home match as they return to league action against Dundee United this weekend and believes that his side must continue to show high levels of intensity to attain a positive result at home.
He added: "We need the switch because we had no game last week, we played two Champions League games in a row which you don’t normally have but we have prepared very well and we have to make sure that we maintain our way of playing especially the intensity and character that we showed on last Wednesday – we need to show that, to have a good result at Ibrox tomorrow.
"They [Dundee United] had some positive results and a really difficult start to the season with the change of manager, they will come here and try to upset us with their play. You’ll always expect a really tough match at home with a compact and defensively organised team, but as I said before we have to keep our standards and we know how to overcome these opponents - we have to show it tomorrow.
"Our first intention is to break it early in the game because it will make it easier for us and they will have to open up to also to find a goal, that’s key to have the same start against Napoli. We don’t have any new fresh injuries after the game on Wednesday, so we have all the players available who were available in the last game."
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