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Daily Record
Daily Record
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Scott Burns

Antwerp comply with Rangers 'demand' but Europa League foes ready to rock Ibrox despite pre-match favour

Franky Vercauteren has told his Royal Antwerp stars to believe they can rock Rangers and produce a stunning Europa League comeback.

The Belgian side arrived in Glasgow knowing they are up against it as they look to overturn last week’s 4-3 defeat at Ibrox.

But they played the role of friendly visitors as they agreed to a request to put in their final preparations at Rangers' Auchenhowie training base rather than the stadium in order to protect the Ibrox grass ahead of the big game.

He said: "It was a demand of Rangers.

"I'm a football fan, so I want to protect the field to play the game. We don't want to demolish the field with respect to the opponent and ourselves.

"We want to play in the best conditions. That's why we are here. When you are a professional team, you have to understand the demands of the other team. We would not want another team to kill our field.

"That's why we are training here instead. Training the day before the game is not so important."

Vercauteren knows his team are likely to need to win by two goals, to make the last 16 and that has to be the Antwerp aim.

He said: “We have to accept the reality that we lost and we need to score two goals more.

“We know the difficulties because of the quality of the opponent. We need to be better than we were in the first game but we also showed in that match that we can score.

“We have to find a balance between attacking and defending because the more we concede the more we will have to score. We still need to believe and be hopeful, that we have the belief we can still do something.

(PA)

“We need to win and we need to score. We also know they are favourites but in football anything is possible.

“We will give our maximum and if we are beaten then we know we will have been beaten by the better team."

French defender Maxime Le Marchand, on-loan from Fulham, knows the task for Antwerp is simple.

He explained: “We know we need to come here and win if we want to go through to the next round.

”What we need to do is to try and perform, get the result and to get through to the next round.

“It is as simple as that.

“There are things that didn’t go to plan last week and it is very clear what has to be done. Our aim is to score at least two more goals than the opposition.

Jordan Lukaku, the brother of Inter star Romelu, believes Antwerp can cause an Ibrox upset.

The on-loan Lazio star stated: “It will be a very difficult task to come here and to try and win by two goals.

“I know they haven’t lost for such a long time and it will be quite a challenge, but we know what we need to do and that is to come here and try to win the game.

“Hopefully, it will be a beautiful game and we can go home with the right result.”

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