OGC Nice vs Rangers preview: Nice to see you, to see you Nice

Morning everyone, Rangers are back in European action as they travel to the south of France to take on Nice. Looking at Nice's squad I was thinking they are no mugs, but then the Europa table says different. They sit in 31st with no wins, 2 draws and 2 losses. So for me that means we need to see this game as a real chance to get another 3 points in the league phase.

They have some attacking quality in their side with Youssoufa Moukouko and Jeremie Boga. Both extremely pacey and direct players, Moukouko is probably one of the most direct forwards I've ever seen. At Borussia Dortmund he was scoring goals at 17/18 years old simply by being the only one who would take the most direct route to goal and then smacking it as hard as he could. If we continue to look fragile in transition I can see us getting hurt, Nice will have no doubt watched clips of our home game against Lyon and will be licking their lips. And Jeremie Boga seems to be their talisman in Europe (can you have a talisman when you haven't won any games?) with him producing a couple of high quality goals from absolutely nothing.

But how can we hurt them? From looking at the goals they've conceded this season, they really struggle to deal with the second ball in the box, especially from set pieces. It might just be a confidence thing, but going direct against them and being alive to the second ball in the box is a very viable tactic here. From a Rangers perspective it is a risky approach to take against a team who have pace on the break, but we need to commit players in the box to take any opportunities that may fall our way. As has been the case recently we will be relying on Vaclav Cerny to make something happen in the final third as confidence everywhere else is very much rock bottom.

Aside from that there really wasn't much of a common theme in the goals they conceded, I think we can draw some parallels with Nice and Rangers as when you aren't playing well, you will concede in anyway you can.

I think we are at the point where our domestic form may catch up with the European form. All season Europe has been a real reprieve, but I thought the players looked really lost and really flattened by the result on Saturday. We've seen that our more cautious approach can pay dividends in Europe, but at the heart of that you still need the players to believe in the approach.

Europe doesn't really feel like a helpful distraction anymore. If anything it's so frustrating to watch us play with real positional discipline and belief when we are so deprived of that in domestic fixtures.

For the team it might be time to drop Diomande, but then again he was good in our last European game, same for Dessers. That's what will give us the real headaches in the line-up. Yilmaz could come in and Jefte could get pushed higher on the left, with Bajrami in the middle. We can't play Hagi or Danilo as they aren't in the squad, so that kind of shuffle is the only real change I could see happening. Hopefully Sterling continues at right back as he will be our best chance of locking down Jeremie Boga.

On some transfer news, Joe Gelhardt has been linked with a move our way. This one really came out of the blue for me. He's a young striker who showed some real promise when he first got into the Leeds first team, with a few premier league goals to his name. He had an okay loan with Sunderland two seasons ago, but since then he's not made a mark at Leeds at all, despite them being in the championship. He's barely played this season (less than 90 minutes in total) and he's never really been very prolific (3 league goals in 18 is his best return). So I don't think this is the kind of move we'd want to make, I don't see him being a real boost to our goal-scoring options and by the looks of it we'd need to raise his confidence, and there's not a lot of confidence to go round at the moment.

But that's all for today, safe travels to those going to the game and I hope you enjoy your time there, I've heard it's a lovely place.