Lyon to spoil Ibrox party?
Rangers and Lyon will be favourites to progress from Group A of the Europa League and they lock horns at Ibrox on Thursday evening. Sparta Prague and Brondby make up the quartet but Peter Bosz and Steven Gerrard will be very confident of making the knockout stages. Lyon sit seventh in Ligue 1 after five matches, missing out on Champions League qualification on the final game of last season, a frustrating conclusion to Rudi Garcia’s reign, best known for reaching the CL semi finals in 2019/20. Rangers come in as favourites and the atmosphere will be electric, but that could spur on a young Lyon side with former Celtic striker Moussa Dembele keen to get one over his old cross-city rivals.
Background
Lyon have performed much better in European competition in recent years, therefore similarly to Real Madrid at Inter Milan, despite freshening up the squad in the last few transfer windows it is a surprise to see Rangers come in as favourites for this encounter. Therefore, the Asian Handicap looks the most appealing area of the market.
Moussa Dembele has scored four in his last three after returning from a loan spell with Atletico Madrid at the back end of 2020/21. The same goes for Jeff Reine-Adelaide who returns from Nice. Jerome Boateng and Xherdan Shaqiri are exciting additions for Lyon and will be looking at the Europa League to reach some high profile stages this season with their respective careers on the way down.
Alfredo Morelos and Ryan Kent remain key danger men for Rangers, Gerrard’s men will be inspired by the big occasion and are sitting pretty at the top of the Scottish Premiership. They should get out of the group in this competition, however Lyon still have some breathtaking names on the team sheet. They have lost Memphis Depay and Maxwel Cornet but in Houssem Aouar, Karl Toko Ekambi and Bruno Guimaraes they have players of a quality that Rangers are not used to coming up against, which could have a significant effect on the outcome of this match.
Lyon have not made the best of starts to the campaign but will be targeting the Europa League to raise some funds and it is still a very small sample size to be drawing conclusions.
Rangers will be bang up for it, but the experience and quality is on the other team here so Lyon edge it for me.
Post bet chat Marcus's Tips:
2-0 Lyon, comfortable winner.