Rangers probably couldn’t have handpicked a better time to face Ange Postecoglou’s Tottenham Hotspur in the Europa League.
Philippe Clement reckons Spurs are in a ‘different league’ than Rangers financially but is eagerly awaiting his young squad testing themselves against ‘one of the world’s best teams’.
But down south in North London, things are certainly not rosy for Tottenham this season and the pressure is mounting on ex-Celtic manager Ange Postecoglou.
Spurs are in the bottom half of the Premier League table with Postecoglou cutting a dejected figure after a 4-3 home defeat to Chelsea this weekend.
Ange Postecoglou on frustrated Spurs fans
The Australian manager is under pressure and clashed with Spurs supporters following a 1-0 defeat to Bournemouth in midweek which is heaping scrutiny on this Europa League trip to Ibrox.
In contrast, Rangers have begun to find their feet under Philippe Clement and will fancy their chances against a wounded Tottenham with the power of Ibrox backing them.
And it’s the Spurs fans that Ange Postecoglou has been addressing come full-time against Chelsea, with the Australian worrying that the club’s support have started ‘expecting things to go wrong’.
Whilst Ange Postecoglou hasn’t always saw eye-to-eye with the Tottenham Hotspur fans this season, the Australian reckons there’s been a run of bad luck in North London.
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“Fair play to them I thought the crowd were good today, they got behind the team,” Postecoglou said after the defeat to Chelsea.
”But you know, I guess the way the season’s gone as it has for us, at 2-0 to lose your centre-back, it does disrupt you.
”You started the game so well, you have to make a substitution which means you’re hampered in making substitutions in the second half.
”All these things come along and you go ‘here we go, another challenge for us, nothing is really running smoothly’.
”So I think the crowd probably senses that as well and it almost becomes a sort of self-fulfilling thing were you’re almost expecting things to go wrong.“
Tottenham boss hopes to ‘turn season around’
It’s been a challenging campaign on a number of fronts, with Rangers (8th) actually in front of Tottenham (9th) in the Europa League table on goal difference.
Spurs have also won just once in their last five Premier League games – a surprise 4-0 victory over a crumbling Manchester City – and are closer to the relegation zone than they are to a Champions League place.
Despite this, Postecoglou insists no-one at Spurs is feeling sorry for themselves and has backed his injury-plagued team to bounce back in the coming weeks.
The comments come ahead of a monumental week for the Aussie coach, who will see the pressure continue to rise with anything but victory against Rangers.
”I don’t sense anyone is feeing sorry for themselves,” said Postecoglou. “But yeah it’s a tough moment.
”Because there are all these tools you can possibly use as a manager when you’re going through tough moments to sort of turn things around.
”Our limited resources from a playing perspective at the moment doesn’t allow us to do that do you’ve got to find other ways.
”It’s not through a lack of effort. The players are constantly out there because we can’t rotate and have given everything they can.
”But it also kind of diminishes performance as well because they probably need a rest but we can’t give them a rest.
”It’s just something we need to kind of tackle head on and keep pushing on.
”There’s still plenty to play for us between now and January just to make sure we keep performing.
”I still sense within this squad there’s a real kind of conviction in what we’re doing and if we maintain that we’ll turn our season around.
”Hopefully at some point we hit some smoother waters just in terms of some of the things that are happening at the moment.
”Some of it is self-inflicted but hopefully we can get some more consistency.”