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The National (Scotland)
The National (Scotland)
Sport
Christopher Jack

James Tavernier makes 'moving forward' call as Rangers eye Champions League boost

James Tavernier reckons the visit of Servette is the perfect fixture for Rangers to banish their Rugby Park blues and kick-start their campaign.

Michael Beale's side crashed to a woeful 1-0 defeat to Kilmarnock on Saturday as their Premiership title bid got off to the worst possible start.

But the new-look Light Blues have no time to feel sorry for themselves as attentions shift to their return to European action and the visit of the Swiss side this week.

Victory at Ibrox would give Rangers one foot in the play-off round and move them to within touching distance of a place in the Champions League this term.

And skipper Tavernier knows Beale's remodelled squad must get over their Killie slump at the first attempt to avoid the pressure building in the opening weeks of the campaign.

Tavernier said: “It’s the first game of the season. It’s obviously disappointing not to get a result and the three points that we all wanted.

“But it’s the first game of the season and we’ve got a very important game round the corner on Wednesday which is the perfect way to answer our performance and rectify what we need to do.

“It’s about moving forward and making sure this doesn’t happen again.

“It’s going to be a different game. It’s at home to a European team and obviously European teams play different to teams in our league.

“But I know as a team what we’ve worked on during pre-season and the boys will answer straight back. We’ll be looking forward to it.

“Obviously Saturday really hurt - and it should. But we can’t dwell on it too much and we have to move forward.

“It [was] obviously a first game for a lot of them. They will learn quickly to how this league works and how teams set up against us.

“We’ve just got to learn from it. We’ll only get stronger for having had this experience moving forward."

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