A big ask for Gio as Rangers travel to Eindhoven | OneFootball

The problem Rangers have now is that due to our failure to take any kind of lead to the Philips Stadion, we now have to figure out a way to secure an away win under a manager who has been very very poor for them in his managerial career.

While regulars will know we have nothing but respect for Gio, his away record in Europe is absolutely howling as a manager, with just one single win, and it was v Dortmund.

Every other result has a loss, bar three draws – and one of them was a dead rubber v Lyon.

And we’re including Feyenoord here as well.

In the Champions League he’s lost every away match he’s played, bar none. Whether it’s group or qualifying, Giovanni has never picked up anything on his European travels as a manager, and we’re asking him to reverse that trend after he was unable to win on our patch?

It’s a big ask.

As one reader reminded us, we’re still in this tie, and he’s right, we are.

Which is why despite history not being in our favour at all here, this is Gio’s chance to reverse the trend. However we do it, we need to win on the night to get to the CL.

And this is why the home leg was a bit of a missed opportunity.

PSV will be a much more capable outfit on their own turf, and they were evidently pretty solid in Govan as it stands.

Rangers certainly far from played poorly, but PSV are quite a leap from Union Saint and the bulk of the sides we faced in the UEL, so this really is a big task ahead of us.

Can we do it?

The last time we won away from home at this kind of level in the UCL was right back to that famous night in France v Lyon in 2007, with a 0-3 win, but that was at the group stage. In 2005 we overcame Famagusta away from home to secure a place in the group stage.

But this was a different time.

This really is a big, big ask. 2-2 was not a horrible result, but we didn’t get the breathing room we craved. We don’t take a cushion to Holland.

Unlike Mikey Mols’ day, we didn’t beat PSV at home with something to spare before we travelled to Holland for our second group match with them.

It’s on a knife edge, and the advantage is with the Dutch.

We just have to have faith that Gio can defy the odds and pull off the biggest win of his managerial career.

He’s done that before…