Rangers vs Athletic Club preview: The Lion's Den

Evening all, Rangers face their toughest test this season at 8pm tomorrow, as they welcome Athletic Club de Bilbao to Ibrox Stadium. It’s no exaggeration to say that the Basque club have been one of the favourites to win the competition all season.

The story so far

Athletic Club finished 2nd in the league phase. Finishing behind Lazio on goal difference only. They progressed past the round of 16 at the expense of Roma, winning 4-3 over Claudio Ranieri's side.

I watched a fair bit of both legs as I was aware we'd play the victor. The first leg in Rome was evenly matched, Roma triumphed with a late winner after Athletic went down to 10 men.

The second leg is incredibly hard to analyse as Roma went down to 10 this time, Mats Hummels receiving his marching orders (very harshly) in the 11th minute of the game. The home side took full advantage and took a 3 goal lead on the night. A very late Roma penalty flatters their influence on the outcome of the tie, as truthfully it looked a foregone conclusion following the red card.

I'll talk about Athletic Club's tactical set up and what we can expect soon, but I want to quickly talk about their league form first. They currently reside in 4th place in La Liga with 54 points, probably just outside the range of challenging for the title and likely to stay ahead of Villarreal 6 points behind them.

What's really striking about their form this season is the sheer volume of draws in the league. 12 games is second only to 13th placed Osasuna. The Basques have the joint best defence in the league but aren't as prolific as the sides above them in the table.

Since a 7-1 win over Real Valladolid on the 23rd February, they have only managed to score 2 goals and win 1 match. There's been plenty of criticism regarding the teams inconsistent league form, but the Europa league has offered a platform for far more consistency. Sounds familiar.

What to expect?

Athletic Club have typically fielded a 4-2-3-1 formation. The midfield 2 are encouraged to stay very disciplined both in and out of possession, they very rarely leave gaps in midfield and at times have a back 6 behind the ball.

Sounds quite negative, but they are one of the few teams at this level that can afford to leave their attack so undermanned.

The club has produced two of the most exciting wide attackers in recent footballing history. Iñaki Williams has been a consistent goal scorer across his La Liga career, breaking into the first team in 2015, he has since registered 110 goals and 67 assists in 463 appearances.

On the other side, his younger brother Nico is widely touted as the best up-and-coming wide forward in Spanish football. You may recognise him as the scorer of Spain's first goal against England in the recent European Championship final. He's been linked with moves to Europe's elite teams with fees around 80 million Euros being discussed as the starting price.

What does that mean for Rangers? Well it will really put our current defenders to the test. This is a team that move the ball very quickly into the Williams brothers and look to isolate a teams wide defenders 1v1. Stopping the supply is easier said than done, as in Yuri Berchiche and Oscar De Marcos, the Basques have two excellent fullbacks very capable of playing either winger in behind.

Any pair of fullbacks in Europe would be trembling at the prospect of facing this Bilbao side. The midfield and the wide centre backs will need to be extremely well placed to support Tav and Jefte/Ridvan. But when the wingers have been kept quiet, Athletic Club have been toothless this season. How we keep them quiet will be the question on Barry Ferguson's mind.

Another threat for Rangers to consider is set-pieces. Athletic Club scored 2 goals from corners against Roma and generally look for a near post flick-on before having their attackers react to the ensuing melee in the 6 yard box.

Cause for hope?

As with many great attacking wingers, the Williams's aren't too concerned with tracking back in the other direction. The wide areas are both Rangers' greatest danger defending and threat going forward.

Going blow to blow with this level of opposition will see Rangers get shredded on the counter. But there will be opportunities for Rangers to hurt the visiting team by committing numbers into wide areas to create overloads and hopefully get Cerny/Tavernier/Igamane in behind.

The management team will need to coach the players carefully on when is best in the game to commit bodies into the attack in wide areas. This will involve telling the leaders in the team such as Vaclav Cerny and James Tavernier about when to encourage teammates to push into attacking areas.

If Rangers are able to time these attacks and moments well, and also take the chances when they arrive. They stand a chance of playing Athletic Club at their own game, defending in numbers before setting their own dangerous pacey threats away down the other end of the pitch.

Ibrox Hoodoo

I don't want really want to keep lambasting this Rangers team and the management. But the fact that they have contrived to lose every single home game in charge is a slight concern ahead of this home European tie against a very good side.

The best home performance produced by this team in recent games was probably the 2-0 home defeat to Fenerbahce. Although the home side tired and eventually had to drag the game to penalties to progress, the tactical set-up was fairly strong and the effort levels high.

A repeat of that level of performance won't be good enough tomorrow, this side need to find a way to harness the levels and energy demonstrated in their triumphs away from home. Whether that's by relying on the fantastic atmosphere they can expect at home. Or by pulling out one of those classic football superstitions like entering the pitch in a certain order or something similarly ridiculous. They need to find some kind of solution to have a hope of progressing in this tie.