Billy Gilmour reveals Rangers Euro regret as Scotland star sets lofty Brighton aim and opens up on Chelsea exit

Scotland star Billy Gilmour has set his sights on WINNING the Europa League with continental debutants Brighton - and admits his only regret is that they won’t face his boyhood heroes and former club Rangers in the tournament.

Gilmour is flying high with the Seagulls shock troops as they prepare to make history when they take on AEK Athens in the south coast’s clubs first ever game in European competition. It comes 26 years after they were just 28 minutes from oblivion when they were without a stadium and a goal down to Hereford and ready to drop out of the Football League after 77 years but they got the point they needed on that final day in 1997 to survive.

Now Gilmour is part of an Albion side sitting fifth in England’s Premier League and welcoming the Greek giants to the Amex Stadium. Next month they have run of games that will see them play Marseille, Liverpool, Manchester City and Ajax. Much of their success this season has been down to the 22-year-old and he admits he’s loving life under the Italian boss and being at a club where he is now “appreciated” after Thomas Tuchel deemed him surplus to requirements at Chelsea, who signed him from Rangers for around £500,000 as a teenager.

Gilmour admitted he’d love to have played the Light Blues - who take on Real Betis in their Europa League opener - and said: “It’s disappointing they never made the Champions League and I was hoping we could have got them. I think most of my family would have been in the Rangers end with my dad in the Brighton end! I still watch the Rangers if they’re on and when I’m with the national team I’m always speaking to John Souttar and Ryan Jack who tell me what’s happening at the club.”

On his Europa League ambitions, Gilmour told talkSPORT: