Rangers need the big boost from beating Roma | OneFootball

Thursday night’s Rangers against Roma fixture is very much a meeting of two teams who could both be in a much better place overall. It is of course the very first ever competitive meeting between the two sides, with the only previous meeting on any level being a friendly in 2004, as Ibrox Noise discussed earlier. But this is the first time that a meaningful match between the two has taken place.

Rangers’ current form

Rangers go into this one, quite frankly, in pretty rotten form. For all the arguments about an apparent improvement under Danny Rohl over two victories against bread and butter sides in the SPL, his overall win ratio remains 50%. That is not good enough for a Rangers manager or head coach.

Roma’s domestic situation

Meanwhile at Roma, their form has been alright domestically, good enough to be in the top four in the league, but they’re low scoring. Just ten goals scored, the lowest of any side up in the top echelons of their league. In the Europa League, they are faring a little better. They are in the playoff area, standing 23rd in the group. They have a chance of playing for the mini tournament of getting to the next round, outside of the automatic qualification places. Rangers, of course, are plum bottom and nowhere near qualification.

Expectations for the match

Both sides have played, obviously, three matches, tomorrow being four. So what do we expect from this one? Well, obviously we have discussed Paulo Dybala’s absence, to be replaced by Dovbyk. It is still not much in their favour at Roma, in the sense that they have lost a player who once was a great striker, but who has somewhat dried up in recent years. He was a hit at Juventus, of course, but these days he is a bit older and does not have the same goal threat. His replacement is not much better. Both of them combined have around five goals in the league this season. It is not that impressive.

A meeting of fading forces

Rangers, however, are not particularly impressive either. It really is the meeting of two sides who have such a grand reputation historically, as we discussed earlier, but whose current form is pretty miserable. Of course, Roma could argue an exception to this, being in the top echelons, fourth in the table, as they are. But nevertheless, they are not impressive on any level. AC Milan, the high flying side in Serie A, put them away with some ease in midweek. Consequently, Rangers, also coming off the back of a bad loss, do not have particular form going into this one.

This is a meeting of two sides who could both use a massive confidence boost. Obviously, in Rangers’ case, we very much hope it is the home team who succeeds. But why do we expect a very miserable draw?