Rangers vs Dynamo Kyiv match preview: Potentially season defining?

Morning everyone, some people might think my title is a bit dramatic, but I wouldn't be so sure. We've seen what can only be described as a mixed bag of performances from the team so far, and now we need to win tonight to progress to the playoff round of the Champions League. Everyone knows the money at stake, even from this stage alone.

From what I heard from my friends at the game on Saturday, especially Jack. The atmosphere was a mixed bag, although it was positive at times. I think you can only get a certain level of atmosphere at Hampden to be honest, it's not one of my favourite stadiums to visit by any means. I can honestly say that if we were taking this team back to Ibrox (as I seemed to think in the match preview for the first leg), I'd be 100% confident in our progression. However, we are walking into unknown territory, so we will have to see what kind of cauldron the Rangers support can turn Hampden into.

In other news, the word on the street seems to be that Hagi is very keen to stay at Rangers which does align with some of his posts on Instagram and his general commitment to treating the B-team games as seriously as possible. I do wonder if he had a Ray Parlour like interaction with Clement this summer and that has sealed the deal on him not getting back into the first team. Although, swiftly on the heels of the news of Hagi's U-turn, there came the news that he has a clause for a wage increase if he plays a certain number of games, which really does explain why we aren't playing him.

I must confess I've always been a fan of Hagi. He was electric in the title-winning season, which really was some time ago now, and then he's not really had the rub of the green with injuries or managers since then. There's no doubt he's got the talent to succeed, and his attitude towards playing for the B-team shows me there's also a maturity there. The main thing is he has this unique quality of being an attacking midfielder not called Tom Lawrence, so for that alone he gets my vote.

Butland did the press conference yesterday and had good things to say about the club and players, past and present. He spoke of his ambition to play in the Champions League, and while I don't think we need to read too much into these comments just now. It's clear this is a guy who is ambitious and if Rangers don't become a team that play regularly in the UCL, he may look elsewhere for that opportunity. He's a top class keeper, so I don't think anyone would deny he deserves that chance to play at the highest level, let's just hope it's with us.

Phil was positive in his press conference about the chances of the team and the changes we will make to be more positive and hurt Kyiv. He also said that Ross McAusland's shot that hit the post last week was something they worked on in training, that may be the case, but for me it had all the hallmarks of an absolute swinger on a players weaker foot, but I'll trust the manager on this one.

He also made mention of Igamane making progress in training, which we are all pleased to hear. It's good to have options, especially when Danilo hasn't come off the bench for a single minute this season. A word for Cyriel Dessers, who has stepped up as usual with two important goals in the last two games, he could be the difference maker tonight so hopefully we see that same side of him.

On the team selection I imagine it will be similar to the weekend, Balogun is unfortunately carrying a knock so I don't foresee any changes in the backline. Sterling has impressed off the bench in recent games, but I don't see him dropping Lawrence or one of the midfield two to start him. I hope we don't play Scott Wright, but it seems like he's nailed down that left side starting berth, presumably by having some kind of incriminating evidence on the manager.

From what I was reading on Kyiv, we can expect them to line-up very similarly to the last game. They certainly caused us plenty of issues with their distribution from the back and the pace on the turn they have in the frontline. I think we will need to be brave and disrupt their ability to play out early on, similar to what we did in the first leg. We also really need to hope Souttar doesn't have another absolute Chernobyl at the back, he truly was terrible in the first leg.

One final note for Rangers Women, who went top of the table with an 11-0 win away to Aberdeen on Sunday. This came following 9-0 and 11-1 wins by Celtic and Hearts respectively.

That's all for today then, I'll be at the game tonight, so please say hello if you see me and pass on any feedback about the blog.