After coming from behind to beat Livingston 2-1 on the opening weekend of the Scottish Premiership, Rangers suffered a disappointing 2-0 defeat to Union SG in the first leg of their Champions League third-round qualifier on Tuesday.
A deflected strike from Teddy Teumaopened the scoring for the Belgian hosts in the 27th minute, before Connor Goldsonwas deemed to have handled the ball inside the area, with Dante Vanzeirconverting the resulting penalty kick with 15 minutes remaining.
Giovanni van Bronckhorst claimed that too many of his players performed below par and admitted that his side were “lucky” to have lost by only a two-goal margin.
Before attempting to turn the tie around in Glasgow next Tuesday, Rangers will now focus on Saturday’s league encounter with Kilmarnock, with the Ibrox faithful expecting a much-improved performance.
The Gers should be confident of returning to winning ways as they have won five of their last six meetings with Kilmarnock, keeping a clean sheet on four of those occasions.
Kilmarnock managed to rescue a 1-1 draw in their opening Premiership match of the new season at home to Dundee United last weekend.
The visitors headed into half time with a slender advantage courtesy of a strike from Dylan Levitt, but the second-half dismissal of Ian Harkes favoured the hosts who netted a dramatic 91st-minute equaliser through centre-back Ash Taylor.
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erek McInnes, who guided Killie to the Championship title last season at the first attempt, is now preparing his side for back-to-back games against Glaswegian giants Rangers and Celtic, with his team heading into both fixtures as major underdogs.
As a manager, McInnes has a poor record against the Gers, winning only six of his 30 encounters against them, including just four in the Premiership.
Kilmarnock will be looking to take a major scalp this weekend and win their first game at Ibrox since March 2018, when Kris Boyd – who made over 200 appearances for both clubs during his career – scored the only goal of the game for the East Ayrshire outfit
