John Lundstram refuses to rule out Rangers miracle against Ajax as he admits debt owed to his manager

Rangers would appear only to be playing for pride in their final Champions League group encounter that brings Ajax to Glasgow on Tuesday.

Rangers' John Lundstram scores to make it 2-1 and set the home team on their way to a 4-1 thumping of Aberdeen that has given him hope of achieving the seemingly-fanciful against Ajax. (Photo by Alan Harvey / SNS Group)

But after Giovanni van Bronckhorst’s men summoned up the intensity to blow away Aberdeen 4-1 at Ibrox, home goalscorer John Lundstram isn’t giving up on the five-goal win that would edge out the Dutch side for a third place finish in Group A and bag a Europa League knock-out play-off tie. “At Ibrox, I think anything is possible,” said the midfielder of an inconceivable turnaround. “In the Champions League we had the intensity for the first 60 minutes in the two home games against Napoli and Liverpool. We were flying in them. Once we conceded the first two against Liverpool we absolutely crumbled [to lose 7-1], there is no denying that. The sending off against Napoli changes the game [that ended 3-0]. Before that the intensity was spot on, I thought we were brilliant.

"[In drawing with Livi last week] it was a different dynamic at home with two banks of five. It is hard to break down, especially when they get that early goal. Don’t get me wrong, we were nowhere near the level. Nowhere near it. But it is tough. Today we were back to what we usually are at home. The first 60 minutes against Napoli and Liverpool the intensity was there and it was there today.”

And Lundstram felt the display was owed to van Bronckhorst, whose position has been coming under increasing scrutiny in recent weeks. “The players need to take a massive ownership of the way we’ve been performing,” the Liverpudlian said.”The gaffer puts a lot of work in and sends us out to play the style of football which we showed against Aberdeen. That’s how he’s wanted us to play every single week. It’s been on us that we haven’t been. We never felt the pressure today because we played a lot more freely. I think we felt the pressure on weeks gone by. This place sometimes can be a hard place to be when fans get a little bit unsettled. There’s no shying away from the fact it does, it’s a big place and massive fan base. But it’s about characters and trying to stand up and lifting the crowd, getting them behind you.”