How will Rangers approach second leg?

BBC News

2 days ago

Joe Rothwell insists Rangers will head to Athens with a front-foot approach and "won't be looking to defend" their lead.The former Bournemouth midfielder made his debut in the 2-0 first-leg win in the Champions League qualifier on Tuesday night as the Russell Martin era began with victory.Rangers struggled for long spells before 18-year-old Findlay Curtis and debutant Djeidi Gassama struck fine second-half goals after side of Greek defender Giorgos Vagiannidis' red card.The Ibrox side host Middlesbrough in a friendly on Saturday before the second leg against Panathinaikos in the Greek capital on Wednesday."I think we have to now [feel in command of the tie]" Rothwell, 30, said. "Obviously, 2-0, it's a good scoreline, especially in this format."So we'll go out there and obviously we won't be looking to defend it. We'll try and go out there and win the game and score as many goals as we can."It [2-0 win] can be huge. I think he [Martin] said in his press conference, it was not going to be a season-defining game but we wanted to go out there and put a show on and really show how he wants to do things."I think we managed to do that, controlled the game as we like to do and just a bit disappointed that we didn't go and probably kill the game off a little bit more."Rangers should have been behind before Curtis' 52nd-minute opener, with Martin having to settle his new team down at the interval to spark an improved performance."He said to just stick to what we do," Rothwell added. "We went away from it a little bit, in terms of how we want to play."And then obviously with them going down to 10 men, we've managed to control the game and probably disappointed we didn't probably get a few more in the end."Rothwell "loved" his first experience of a European night at Ibrox."Obviously you hear stories from the outside, but when you actually get out there and experience it, it's fantastic and I'm sure the fans are going to be behind us in every single game and we'll need them."