Steven Gerrard will unleash Florian Kamberi in a bid for Europa League glory in Braga.
The Rangers boss raved about the performance of the on loan Hibs striker at St Johnstone and revealed he has played his way into his starting line-up for Portugal.
Rangers travel to Braga on Tuesday morning guarding a precious 3-2 first leg lead as they bid to make the round of 16.
The ropey Ibrox defence has failed to keep a clean sheet in six of their last seven games, including Sunday’s 2-2 draw at McDiarmid Park that all but ended their title challenge.
They haven’t kept a clean sheet on the road in Europe since the goalless draw at Legia Warsaw in the qualifying round in August and are also without suspended Euro talisman Alfredo Morelos.
However Kamberi’s Perth performance, scoring his first goal for the club and setting up Joe Aribo for the other, was a bright spot on an otherwise bleak day for Gerrard.
Gerrard said: “I wanted to start him on Sunday but obviously the risk of him playing a full game and not being fresh on Wednesday was one that I was juggling about with.
“However, when we went 1-0 down I needed to twist and I did that. I thought he was absolutely outstanding. On that performance he plays in Braga, for sure.
“You can’t ignore that, it was some impact. On that evidence, he can step up to the plate in Europe.
“It will be a different type of game in Portugal. He will have to be selfless and do some real, dirty, strong running and sacrifice himself for the team at times.
“But you can see that if he gets an opportunity then he knows where the back of the net is and that is a real big positive for us.
“He got man of the match against St Johnstone and everyone should have been talking about Flo Kamberi after the game.
“Instead, they talked about Rangers as a defensive unit and that is my responsibility to solve.”
