Queens boss Wullie Gibson has told his side that they have to stand up and be counted or they will be in for a tough night at Ibrox this evening.
The Palmerston side head to Glasgow to face Rangers in the knockout stages of the Premier Sports Cup on the back of a 3–1 defeat at Falkirk.
It was another slow start from the Doonhamers at the Falkirk Stadium and the manager says if they put in a similar performance tonight, they’ll be punished.
He said: “I felt as the first half went on the boys were feeling sorry for themselves and they can’t do that.
“If they go to Ibrox and they’re feeling sorry for themselves it will be more than two. They’re going to play a team that has just qualified for the Champions League group stages and have very good players.
“If we give them the same space and time as we gave Falkirk, they will hurt us, so we need to pick ourselves up and go to Ibrox and put on a better performance.
“We need to be more aggressive defensively, we need to be stronger or at least be harder to break down.”
Not many people will expect Queens to pick up a result against Giovanni van Bronckhorst’s side but the Palmerston chief doesn’t believe the cup game comes with any less pressure.
He said: “People keep seeing it as a free hit but I don’t see any game as a free hit, its 11 against 11. I know you’re going to a tough place against a very good side but if we perform to our maximum, we might catch Rangers on a bad day.
“That’s what we’ve got to do, go there with hope and belief. We can’t go there thinking, it’s a free hit for us and then on the back of that we come away with a defeat that can hurt. So, I expect the boys to go to Rangers and put a performance on.”
Gibson added a poor performance against Rangers could damage confidence ahead of another big game against Dunfermline in the league at the weekend.
Gibson added: “You can see that in the first half, the confidence drained from us and was oozing out of Falkirk, so the boys have to pick themselves up. I like to think that I have assembled, not only a good group of players, but characters as well. They’ve got to get their arms around each other, I don’t need to do that. We’ve got some leaders in the dressing room that will pick the boys up.”
He said: “It’s not for the first time that we didn’t turn up in the first half. I don’t know the reason why as we are prepared and work hard on it during the week but we just didn’t turn up in the first half. We allowed Falkirk to press us, allowed them to pass us off the park and we didn’t want to take control.”
