John Souttar refuses Rangers excuses as his confidence remains high ahead of Dynamo Kyiv showdown

John Souttar is adamant there will be no excuses if Rangers fail their Champions League test against Dynamo Kyiv.

And the Ibrox defender says the squad can use their recent European bounce-back factor to deliver a proper performance in Poland. Philippe Clement’s team go onto the continent’s elite stage on Tuesday night against the Ukranians.

Rangers head for the first-leg in Lublin with the squad still being reshaped by the manager after a summer of personnel changes. Clement’s team will be denied their home comforts in the return leg on Tuesday week with the tie being played at Hampden due to the unavailability of Ibrox. Dynamo also had the weekend off as Rangers faced a gruelling Premiership opener against Hearts.

But Souttar insists Rangers aren’t interested in excuses as he outlined: “No. There will be no excuses on our behalf and, hopefully, we won’t need to use any excuses and we will be going through. As players we concentrate on the football, I am sure you are all aware of that. We do everything we can, everything we can control we do. We are looking forward to Tuesday.”

Kyiv were hugely impressive in the previous round when hammering nine goals past Partizan Belgrade over the two legs. Six of those were scored in the home leg in the Arena Lublin which will be the venue for Tuesday’s night’s first clash. Rangers, on the other hand, failed to hit the heights as they drew 0-0 with Hearts in their Premiership opener. Souttar admitted it needs to improve, but says past experiences prove that achievable.

He explained: “We will need to step it up from what we did there [against Hearts]. As a group, we are confident we can go there and get a positive result. There were times last year when we maybe didn’t have a great