Steven Gerrard calls on Rangers to make Ibrox a fortress
Friday 10 August 2018 16:05, UK
Steven Gerrard is calling on Rangers to turn Ibrox into a fortress and says they are not good enough to pick and choose who they turn up against.
The new Rangers boss take charge of a Scottish Premiership game at Ibrox for the first time on Sunday against St Mirren and Gerrard wants visiting teams to fear playing at their ground.
"These are games that we have to win and take maximum points from," he said.
"The idea is to try to make Ibrox a fortress. The mentality has to be that whatever team comes to Ibrox in whatever competition we need to own the stadium.
"We need to perform like a Rangers team should perform which is front foot aggressive, we control it with our style, how we want it to look.
"We're not good enough at the moment and we haven't been good enough of late in terms of over the last few years to pick and choose our games when we turn up and who we turn up against.
"We can't just think 'Oh well, it's a big game today we'll turn up'.
"Every single game is big at Ibrox whether it be in the league, the cup, the Europa League, that's got to be the mentality.
"Whoever comes into out stadium has to feel this new Rangers team."
New signing Borna Barisic could make his debut against St Mirren after signing from Osijek earlier this week.
But Rangers will again be without the injured midfield duo of Graham Dorrans (knee) and Jordan Rossiter (ankle) and Gerrard revealed mixed news on their recoveries.
He said: "I'm not too sure (on a timescale) for Graham just yet. He's off to see a specialist for an update, so we will wait for that in the coming days.
"But Jordan is progressing well. He won't be too long but will still be a couple of weeks I would think.
"Borna is available so he will add to the squad which played last night, which is nice. We're looking forward to the game on Sunday. It will be a good challenge for us."
Ryan Jack is set to miss out again on Sunday as he continues to recover from a head injury.
The midfielder sat out the 3-1 win over Maribor in the Europa League on Thursday night after suffering a concussion against Aberdeen last Sunday.
