Rangers vs Tottenham predicted lineups and team news

The UEFA Europa League has been a welcomed distraction for both Rangers and Tottenham Hotspur as they prepare to face off in a battle of Britain on Thursday night (December 12th) in Glasgow.

Kick-off at Ibrox is scheduled for 20:00 GMT, with the game set to be shown live on TNT Sports 1.

Rangers vs Tottenham Predicted XIs

Rangers (4-2-3-1): Butland; Tavernier, Souttar, Balogun, Jefte; Raskin, Hagi; Cerny, Diomande, Igamane; Danilo.

Tottenham (4-3-3): Forster; Pedro Porro, Dragusin, Gray, Udogie; Sarr, Bentacur, Bissouma; Johnson, Lankshear, Son.

Rangers vs Tottenham Team News

Tom Lawrence and Oscar Cortes are both injury doubts for Rangers, who may also be without the services of Rabbi Motondo given he has just come back to training.

Neraysho Kasanwirjo remains a long-term absentee for the Light Blues due to the defender’s serious knee injury.

Even with Motondo returning to training, he’s unlikely to have pushed Hamza Igamane out of the team, with the forward scoring four goals in his last four games.

As for Spurs, Ange Postecoglou has a couple of injury concerns at the heart of defence, with centre-backs Micky van de Ven and Cristian Romero both picking up knocks in the 4-3 defeat at the hands of Chelsea in the Premier League last time out.

Postecoglou confirmed Brennan Johnson felt ill at half-time in that game against the Blues and was brought off, so it’s hoped the Wales international will have recovered in time for the trip north of the border.

Ben Davies is out with a recent hamstring injury he picked up against Bournemouth and joins the likes of Richarlison, Wilson Odobert and Mikey Moore on the sidelines.

Under-pressure Postecoglou to get quite the welcome

A returning and successful former Celtic manager will always get extra attention from the home faithful when taking to the dugout at Ibrox.

Postecoglou is a manager under increasing pressure after back-to-back defeats to Bournemouth and Chelsea saw Spurs fall further behind in the race for a Premier League top-four finish.

The Tottenham boss did himself no favours by rising to comments from supporters in Spurs’ away end at Bournemouth recently, with stewards encouraging the Greek tactician to step away from any further conflict.

Pressure does strange things to people and perhaps cracks are starting to show with Postecoglou, after what had initially been such a positive start to life with the Lilywhites.

Inconsistency has been the killer for Spurs this season, while just looking back at the team news section shows how Postecoglou has been forced to deal with a host of injury issues this term.

The former Hoops boss should be given credit for how his side have coped with their Europa League commitments despite the significant list of walking wounded.

With 10 points from their first five games, the same tally as Rangers, both teams find themselves firmly in the mix to reach the knockout stages of the new-look Europa League this season.

Thursday’s game at Ibrox looks set to be an end-to-end contest between two sides making that final push to secure a spot in those coveted knockout places.