Steven Gerrard wants Rangers to keep concentration against Lyon

The Light Blues host the Ligue 1 outfit in their Europa League Group A opener at Ibrox on Thursday night.

Since Gerrard took over as Gers manager in 2018, he has garnered a record of 25 wins, 16 draws and eight defeats against European opposition and rates French side Lyon, bossed by Peter Bosz, who guided Bayer Leverkusen to victory over the Scottish Champions in the last-16 of the Europa League in 2020, as top class.

“They are arguably the best,” said Gerrard, who confirmed that defender Filip Helander has had surgery on a knee problem which will keep him out for “the foreseeable future” and that centre-back Connor Goldson is available again after Covid-19 isolation. “At full strength Lyon are very much a Champions League team with Champions League-calibre players, they have a manager who got this job on the back of doing ever so well as the Bayer Leverkusen manager.

“He has been here before, he knows what we are about so this is a real big test tomorrow and there is no doubt about it we have to be at our best and that goes for both sides of the game.

“We have to have a high level of focus and concentration tomorrow because if you don’t against these teams you can be punished and punished very quickly so it is a real good test and challenge.

“But we have to have our own confidence and belief that we can play at this level, we can compete and at the right times during the game we have to show bravery that we can hurt the opposition as well.

“We are excited, we are looking forward to it but we know the size of the challenge and it is arguably the biggest we have had as a group.”

Gerrard is reading little into the news that Lyon captain Moussa Dembele, the former Celtic striker, will not travel through injury.

He said: “I think this club and this team knows more than most the abilities and quality that he possesses.

“He has obviously started reasonably well and he has gone to Lyon and built on his career at Celtic, gone to the next step into one of the top-five leagues in the world and produced so I have a lot of respect for the player in terms of his technical quality and ability.

“But I don’t really get involved in opinions of whether Lyon will be weaker or stronger because they have players capable of coming in, they have talent all over the pitch, especially in the front-four positions.

“So it would be very naive for me to think Lyon are going to be any weaker just because one player is missing.”

Helander was stretchered off in the second half of the cinch Premiership match against St Johnstone at McDiarmid Park on Saturday after pulling up.

Gerrard said: “Filip will be missing, he has had surgery in the last 24/48 hours to fix an issue that they spotted when they went inside to have a look so he will be missing for the foreseeable future.

“He is a big player for us, he has always been consistent so he will be a miss and a loss but again it is the reason why it is always important to have four centre backs so you can cope when one is missing.

“In terms of how long he will be out for, it is difficult to put a time frame but he will certainly be missing for at least a few months.”

--

A message from the Editor:

Thank you for reading this story on our website. While I have your attention, I also have an important request to make of you.

In order for us to continue to provide high quality and trusted local news on this free-to-read site, I am asking you to also please purchase a copy of our newspaper whenever you are able to do so.

Our journalists are highly trained and our content is independently regulated by IPSO to some of the most rigorous standards in the world.

But being your eyes and ears comes at a price. So we need your support more than ever to buy our newspapers during this crisis.

With the coronavirus lockdown having a major impact on many of our local valued advertisers - and consequently the advertising that we receive - we are more reliant than ever on you helping us to provide you with news and information by buying a copy of our newspaper when you can safely.

You can also enjoy unlimited access to the best news from across Northern Ireland and the UK by subscribing to newsletter.co.uk

With a digital subscription, you can read more than five articles, see fewer ads, enjoy faster load times, and get access to exclusive newsletters and content. Visit https://www.newsletter.co.uk/subscriptions now to sign up.

Thank you