Rangers squeeze into Champions League play-off: Old double act shines, horrendous Danilo miss, the 180 spin

Rangers are a team still looking to find themselves, but all that will matter to them right now is that they found a way to put their Champions League third round qualifying tie to bed against Servette. Especially that for 45 minutes the clash in the Stade de Geneve looked like it might prove a bed of nails for Michael Beale’s men.

Rangers' James Tavernier, right, celebrates scoring a priceless goal against Servette.

A goal down and anaemic in their endeavours across that first period, it was as if the interval provided them with the footballing transfusion. With their blood starting to pump, they developed an urgency that allowed them to fashion a 50th-minute equaliser that snared them a 3-2 aggregate win following their unconvincing 2-1 Ibrox first leg success. And for all the talk of the new Rangers carved from fresh arrivals, it was an old double act that extricated them from an iffy situation, a trademark Borna Barisic cross he flighted in from the left leading to James Tavernier to steal in at the back post and punch in a header from only a couple of yards out. Thereafter, Rangers never seemed in serious danger of giving up their slender lead in the tie, which represented an 180 spin on what had gone before.

As was widely anticipated, Beale redesigned his team’s shape. Yet the unexpected was that with Danilo deployed through the middle, Abdallah Sima and Todd Cantwell were the men to flank the Brazilian on the right and left respectively. That denied Sam Lammers a place in the starting line-up, while Cyriel Dessers’ demotion to the bench wasn’t any great surprise. These switch-ups meant Ryan Jack could sit deep in a midfield three comprising Jose Cifuentes and Nicolas Raskin, but whatever the Rangers manager hoped would flow from this configuration, it didn’t as the visitors’ play was beset by blockages.

They struggled to produce any concerted patterns. As a result, whenever an erratic Servette were able to find another gear, Rangers found themselves in trouble. They should have been a goal down within the opening minutes, Jack Butland sparing them that predicament when his anticipation and positioning was on point to thwart Timothe Cognat after he sliced through the middle of the penalty box. The midfielder should have buried the chance, in reality, but his team-mate Dereck Kutesa showed him the way with a glorious finish for a 22th-minute opener that put the tie back level at 2-2 on aggregate. A curling effort from the left hand corner of the box, it was the sweetest of strikes that threatened to turn the evening desperately sour of the Ibrox men.

Rangers' Connor Goldson, left, and Servette's Chris Bedia battle for the ball during the Champions League qualifying second leg match in Geneva.

This feeling strengthened when Danilo was guilty of a horrendous miss on the half-hour mark. A sitter of monumental proportions, the striker merely had to side-foot into an empty net after a Cifuentes diagonal cross dropped to him at the back post. Instead, he got his contact completely wrong and stubbed the ball into the ground and wide.

If Servette caught some breaks in the first leg, the fact Rangers were only a goal down at the interval was the result of this scenario flipping. That and desperately poor decision-making from Kutesa, who blew a huge opportunity after he was released down the left and able to race half the length of pitch. With Butland then in his sights he elected to shoot, allowing the England international to block, instead of squaring to the all-alone Jeremy Guillemenot in the middle of the area.

By then, Beale had changed his side’s shape with Cantwell operating at the apex of a diamond as Sima was pushed alongside Danilo. It seemed to have no material impact in a ghastly first period for his men but post-interval it was an entirely different story. Once Tavernier had put them back in a winning position, they pushed on into the spaces that their opponents had been previously occupying to gradually squeeze them out – substitute Dessers cracking an effort off the inside of the post. And in doing so ensured they squeezed their way into the Champions League play-off round against a PSV Eindhoven that will not prove so malleable.