Saint Gilloise in Rangers Champions League admission as 'disappointed' boss seeks a transfer spark

Union Saint-Gilloise boss Karel Geraerts wasn’t best pleased with his side’s performance as they were held to a 1-1 draw at Sint-Truiden as the kicked off their Jupiler Pro League campaign with just one more fixture to come before they host Rangers in the massive first leg of their Champions League third round qualifier.

And he has again made a desperate plea for reinforcements ahead of the meeting with the Ibrox men, predicting signings will arrive this week. The Belgians were forced to come from behind to salvage a draw after falling behind to a Daichi Hayashi strike for the home side with £10 million-rated Brighton loanee Simon Adingra grabbing a leveller with 19 minutes left. Their hosts finished a whopping 26 points behind them after the regular season last term and it was a disappointing start to the new campaign.

Geraerts is in his first senior managerial role since taking over the reins at Saint-Gilloise following predecessor Felice Mazzu’s move to Anderlecht where he replaced Vincent Kompany. It wasn’t the best start to life in the dug-out and Giovanni van Bronckhorst and his scouting team will have plenty to assess. Geraerts delivered his own verdict, saying: “I like to win so I'm a bit disappointed. On the other hand, our first half was not good enough. We were able to fight back in the second half and we deserved to equalise.

“All in all, this is a correct result. I really want to congratulate the players. We must not forget that this is the first match on an artificial pitch too. We're not used to it. We only did three and a half weeks of preparation and they six, so that means that our players still have to grow in the weeks to come and I'm confident."

Saint-Gilloise’s next game will be at home to