Olympiacos vs Rangers preview: Clement's European Odyssey

Morning all, Rangers are back in action today away to Olympiacos in the Europa League. I'm going to steer away from Rangers initially and talk about today's opponents.

It goes without saying that this is a relatively tough place to go, my memories of Olympiacos as a team are them beating top sides in Greece in the group stages of the Champions League. Although it's probably worth noting that they tended to get their big scalps in games that didn't really matter, not that I think that's anything to be sniffed at, beating an Arsenal side full of first team debutants is still beating Arsenal.

We know that this is a good side in Europe, they are the holders of the UEFA Conference League after beating Fiorentina in the final. Their coach is Jose Luis Mendilibar, a Europa League winner with Sevilla. They have a patchy record in the league and currently sit in 4th place, very low for the serial champions of Greece. But in Europe they have 2 out of 3 wins, with a win against Malmo and a loss against Olympique Lyon amongst those games, sounds quite familiar actually.

There will be an intimidating atmosphere at the game tonight, and considering we've seen this team wilt away at Pittodrie and Rugby Park already this season, I'm hardly full of confidence they are going to dig in tonight.

The main Rangers team news is that we've lost Tom Lawrence for 4-6 weeks after he limped off the Hampden turf on Sunday. He looked like he had found some real form for a few weeks, pretty much until we played at Rugby park, at which point he looked back to his very frustrating and often passive self. But even with that dip in form, we can't afford to be losing any more players, if this was Football Manager I'd be dangerously close to signing the mediocre free agents that would be available at this point of the season. To be honest, if Ali Dia turned up I'm not sure we could afford to turn our noses up at him playing for us at the moment.

I think we all know what team we want to see, we know that Danilo isn't in the squad for Europe, so if Igamane could start to run the channels and hopefully tire the Olympiacos defence that would be ideal. Sterling should probably start over Tavernier given his impact on Sunday. This is the perfect game for a more balanced midfield 3 given our lack of options at the 10, Bajrami may need to continue on the left if we do that. Alternatively, Bajrami could start at the 10 position with Lovelace potentially starting on the left.

I think Bajrami at the 10 is something we will see in the next league game, and we aren't very likely to see it tonight. Largely given the fact that our best option on the left apart from him would be Lovelace. I don't expect him to be thrown into a European away game in the kind of febrile atmosphere we will get tonight. So we can expect Diomande to continue, hopefully in a more balanced role, but more likely we will keep that 4-2-3-1 shape.

In other news, Rangers have released another classic kit, it does look very nice, like most of us I love the badge. I won't be buying it given the low ebb I feel at the moment around the club. But if you want to get it for free, the Rangers Journal are hosting a giveaway here.

I think given the feeling around the team at the moment, there's not loads to remark upon. But given how our previous European fixtures have gone, I expect us to win 4-0 tonight and then lose our next league match. Have a good day everyone.