THE Rangers fans are obviously greatly enjoying the progression towards

a 55th league title and the great job Steven Gerrard has done to achieve this. However, he should be getting praise from the whole of the Scottish game for the status he has accomplished for our reputation in European football. With the victory against Royal Antwerp on Thursday night he actually went ahead of Walter Smith in terms of victories in European competitions. That’s pretty amazing considering the different time scales both men have been in charge of Rangers.

This season, Rangers have now played 11 matches in the Europa League, winning nine of them and drawing two. This is a tremendous run in the competition and when you consider that they’ve also scored 33 goals during this period it makes it even more impressive.

To score nine goals against Royal Antwerp over the two legs is a sign of how Rangers are developing their European style since Gerrard took over. Earlier in the tournament, Spurs played against Antwerp twice in the group stage and lost 1-0 in Belgium and won 2-0 at home. They were actually top of the Premier League at the time of these matches.

I remember at the time pundits saying the Spurs defeat in Belgium was understandable as it’s a strong league with many top-class players and you only need to look at how their international team are doing to know the high standard of Belgian football. For Rangers to win both matches and score nine goals gives the Scottish game a serious level of credibility and we should be commending them for achieving it. The other big factor for the Scottish game are the points attained for our coefficient and this will be a great benefit to our clubs going forward in European competitions.

The performance on Thursday was outstanding with some terrific goals also being delivered on the night. Considering they were without key players such as James Tavernier and Ryan Jack it was a really impressive performance. Alfredo Morelos was outstanding and showed form he’s not produced enough of in the domestic game. Antwerp couldn’t cope with him and with the support he was getting from Ianis Hagi and Ryan Kent it meant that Rangers were producing exceptional attacking football.

Antwerp are actually a good team and they did compete well until Kent scored Rangers’ third goal to put them three ahead on aggregate. This was the outstanding goal of the game as the build-up move was outstanding involving Hagi and Morelos.

Perhaps the biggest moment of the night came before this when young Nathan Patterson scored his first goal for the club 20 seconds after coming on as a substitute for Leon Balogun at half-time. This must have been a special moment for the young player when you consider how he must have been feeling over the last couple of weeks considering his behaviour in attending a house party and breaking lockdown ruled which resulted in him being fined by the club and having to isolate at home for 10 days. During his time off, I’m sure he was probably also worrying about whether his Rangers career would continue. Steven Gerrard decided to accept his apology, put him back in the squad and had no worries about putting him on as a half-time substitute in what was a crucial match. It actually paid off for both parties, with Patterson having an outstanding 45 minutes, scoring a vital goal and Gerrard being proved correct in his handling of the situation.

There’s a good way still to go in the Europa League this season but with the league title almost tied up, I’m pretty sure that Gerrard will want to concentrate greatly on Rangers pushing towards the final. It won’t be easy as you can see the standard of opposition that are still in the competition. However, with the performances Rangers have produced so far I can imagine they are currently one of the teams the big clubs might want to avoid. It’s a while since we had a team performing well in Europe so we should welcome the moment.

AND ANOTHER THING

It’s interesting that we have our first domestic trophy being decided tomorrow when Livingston take on St Johnstone. Only a few weeks ago we would definitely have considered Livi to be favourites with the great form they were in with David Martindale now in charge.

They were actually unbeaten from November until February 6. Aptly, who was it that finished this great run?  St Johnstone. Livi have now taken just one point from their last three league games.

Saints, on the other hand, are on an impressive run with their only two defeats this year being against Rangers and Celtic. Maybe the Livi players have been saving themselves a bit recently with a view to playing in this final but I still feel St Johnstone will now be considered favourites. Let’s hope we get a great final despite the fact that, sadly, there will be no spectators at the match.