Todd Cantwell targets Rangers Europa League rerun as current crop aim to match historic heroes

Rangers have Europa League history on their side but Todd Cantwell would love to have his own bright future in the competition.

It’s just 18 months since Gers came within a couple of kicks of sealing Ibrox immortality as they lost out to Frankfurt in the Seville final. There’s still plenty of players in Philippe Clement’s squad who experienced that thrill ride on the run to Andalusia. Cantwell, though, wasn’t one of them having not moved to Ibrox until last January. But he’d cherish nothing more than savouring his own adventure after admitting he’s dreaming of delight in Dublin.

He said: “The important thing when you play for Rangers is to put your personal feelings aside. Everything is built around the team in terms of what happens out there. Naturally, everyone associated with Rangers wants to go as far as we can. History would show we’ve done well in this competition. With a lot of new faces, we want to try and emulate that or go one better. But football games are difficult to predict, aren’t they?”

Cantwell is hoping to make his first appearance of Gers’ Europa League campaign having sat out the last six weeks with a knee injury. And he’s looking to make up for lost time as Rangers seek to get back on track after the shock defeat to Aris Limassol last time out.

He said: “It was really difficult. Results took a turn for the worse and when you’re injured you feel a little bit helpless. Although you are in and around the changing room, you can’t really affect anything that’s happening. For someone who doesn’t like being injured – I’m sure most people didn’t – it was difficult. But we’ve got to move forward now. We started the first game with a really good result and we’re looking forward to getting back into it."