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Daily Record
Daily Record
Sport
Gabriel McKay

Slavia Prague warned Rangers will be even tougher than Leicester as Czech legend slams 'embarrassing' weekend display

Slavia Prague have been warned that Rangers will represent an even tougher test than Leicester City, as a Czech football legend branded their weekend performance "embarrassing".

Jindrich Trpisovsky's side welcome the Premiership champions for their Europa League last 16 first leg on Thursday, and on paper it's a balanced tie.

Rangers are unbeaten in this season's competition but Slavia knocked out Brendan Rodgers' Leicester in the last 32.

The Czech Republic's all-time top goalscorer Jan Koller expects Thursday's game to be even harder, as he paid tribute to Steven Gerrard's side.

And the former striker warned Slavia will have to up their game after a poor showing at the weekend.

Koller told iSport: "Something tells me it's going to be harder for Slavia than in the previous Leicester double header.

"Rangers are a very attacking team and they already have the title in their pocket so they can play with freedom.

"Gerrard has put together a great team, and if they won with such a margin and a 20 point lead over Celtic, they must be of enormous quality.

"In general, I expect more aggressive football than with Leicester, in my opinion more goals will be scored in both matches.

"If they were fighting for the title with Celtic they'd have to split their strength, but now they can focus only on the Europa League.

Steven Gerrard won the league with Rangers (REUTERS)

"They can be more at ease and rotate the team as needed. That's difficult for Slavia but they shouldn't let that be decisive.

"If they take two legs as seriously as they did against Leicester then Slavia will go through again."

But Koller has seen some worrying signs on that front, as he was asked for his thoughts on the weekend win over Banik Ostrava.

He replied: "Embarrassing.

"At the same time, they started well, scored two goals in the first half and did not let the opponent do anything.

"In the second half, Banik had nothing to lose and began to come into it.

"Slavia scored an own goal and in the end can count themselves lucky it wasn't a draw.

"I expected Slavia to score at least three or four goals but Banik never gave up and played with honour in the second half.

"Slavia shouldn't have allowed them to though, that wasn't them in the final third.

"They shot pointlessly when there were better placed players and overall they were casual and completely inefficient in attack.

"It almost cost them."

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