TOM LAWRENCE hopes Rangers can feed off the European energy of the Ibrox crowd as they resume their UEFA Europa League league phase campaign against FCSB tomorrow evening.
The Gers are looking to get the winning feeling back among the group after the disappointment of the league defeat away to Kilmarnock on Sunday afternoon.
Lawrence is no stranger to the impact of the Rangers home support on a European occasion and he hopes that his side’s display can give the fans reasons to be cheerful.
Speaking to the media ahead of tomorrow evening’s visit of the Romanian champions, Lawrence commented: “It’s a massive game for us. Any Europa League game is always big, especially at Ibrox.
“We need to put on a performance for the fans and hopefully we’ll do that.
“We know how special the European nights are at Ibrox. I hope the fans are right behind us because they didn’t deserve that on Sunday.
“Hopefully we can put on a good performance and we’re aggressive in everything that we do. We want a lot more from the game on Thursday.
“You have to earn the right for the fans to back you even more, and hopefully they do because we’ll need them.”
FCSB have won each of their two league phase fixtures ahead of their visit to Glasgow, getting the better of RFS at home before triumphing in Greece over PAOK.
They are also a team in form after recording their fifth successive victory in all competitions on Sunday.
However, Lawrence says the onus will be on Rangers to impose their game on the visitors, and the midfielder also believes it’s important that the side show that the Kilmarnock defeat was a one-off.
He added: “I’d be lying if I said we were in a happy place, especially after the game.
“We were all disappointed and frustrated with the way we played, but we’ve had a few days to work in training.
“The main thing is that we stick together; tough times come and we’re looking forward to the game tomorrow.
“We want to win every trophy that we play in – and that’s what you have to do at Rangers – but we’re going through a difficult period and we need to get through.
“We need to come out of it the right way.
“I think we’ve created enough chances in the previous game. I don’t know why we performed like we did on Sunday, but we need to make sure we don’t perform like that ever again while we’re here.
“As a creative player myself, I need to create chances and score goals. We were too lacklustre in play on Sunday and we’ll be better come tomorrow.
“What do we expect from FCSB? They have a number of good players, whether the captain plays or not.
“They play the same way and we need to nullify that. We need to implement our game the way that we want to play.
“Ianis [Hagi] has been able to help with bits and bobs. We’ve done our analysis on them and we have all the data.”