Walter Smith wary of PSV, but eager to defy odds again

Quite clearly, the Dutch side, full of running and three points clear at the top of the Eredivisie, are big favourites going into the tie, the bookmakers making them odds-on to triumph at the Philips Stadion with Weir's men, limping into this with injuries and indifferent form, being utterly friendless in the betting markets.

Rangers have two jobs to do. Firstly, to avoid the kind of beating the odds layers reckon is on the cards and, secondly, to try and land the precious booty of an away goal. Smith, with containment and counter-attacking in mind, will surely whip his depleted troops into a 5-4-1 or a 4-5-1 whereas PSV, who have scored 15 goals in their eight Europa League matches this season, will try something altogether more adventurous in an attempt to kill the tie stone dead. And they have the artillery to do it. Of that, there is little doubt.

"I think PSV are a steadier team than Sporting Lisbon," said Smith when asked to compare Rangers' victims in the round of 32 and their targets for this, the round of 16. "Sporting were similar to ourselves and were having a similar season to us, such as their financial problems to overcome and losing their top goalscorer. But PSV are far steadier, with a group of players who, in the main, have been with them for a couple of seasons.

"They're a typical Dutch team in their passing and moving. They also play with two wider players - two wingers - and with a three in the middle of the park. So their set-up, if not exactly typical Dutch, is certainly what we would associate with Dutch teams."

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Rangers having to play away from home in the first leg is a total departure from what they're used to in knockout competition in Europe. Their past seven two-leg eliminators in the Europa League, the Champions League qualifiers and the old Uefa Cup have all begun with the first match at Ibrox, a formula that got them through on five occasions out of the seven.

You have to go back to Hapoel Tel Aviv in February 2007 to find the last time they began a knockout contest on the road. So it's a different dynamic this evening, even if Smith downplays its significance.

"I don't think it will make that much difference to the way we will approach this game. But, in the Champions League and the Europa League, an away goal is certainly a factor. Look at Arsenal in Barcelona. Arsenal were still in the match until the last minute of the game and if they had scored they'd have gone through. So it is important to get an away goal. I hope we've got enough about us to get one."

There may not be any box-office names at PSV - Dutch international Ibrahim Affelay was the last of them and he left in January for Barcelona - but they are a fast-emerging team with some exciting young players. Their left-back, Erik Pieters, is only 22 and yet he was in the Dutch side that won the Under-21 European Championship in 2007. Jeremain Lens, the winger, is 23, but he's already been talked about as the next 10 million player to come out of Holland. Balazs Dzsudzsak, the 24-year-old Hungarian who occupies the left side of midfield, has a burgeoning value as well given his prodigious goalscoring this season. Dzsudzsak has scored four goals in his last four league games for PSV, has another four in the eight Europa League games he's played and has 21 in 38 for the season in all competitions. This fellow looks a pretty special talent.They are built to attack, with two Swedes up front, both of them 24-years-old and both hungry. Marcus Berg was once the player of the tournament in the 2009 Under-21 European championship, and Ola Toivonen, a strapping blonde, is on a ratio of a goal every other game since the start of the season.

On top of that lot, they have a centre-half, Francisco Rodriguez, who might have been on the blower to Celtic's Efrain Juarez during the week looking for information given Rodriguez was Juarez's team-mate with Mexico at the World Cup last summer and played in every game. More familiar to us in Britain, Andreas Isaksson, the veteran Sweden and former Manchester City man, is in goal, and Wilfred Bouma, the ex-Aston Villa player, should start alongside Rodriguez at the heart of the defence.

"They have decent players all through their team," said the Rangers manager. "I never like to pick out anybody in particular. Their players are all comfortable on the ball and they have a decent physical presence. They are a good side. They will not be anything other than that. FC Twente have been the top Dutch team over the last couple of seasons but PSV are ahead of them now so you know they are going to be a decent side.

"I've said on many occasions it's a problem from Uefa when you see all the best Dutch players leaving their country to play elsewhere. That obviously has an impact on their own league and that's been happening for a while now. But the one thing the Dutch have ahead of us is a structure which keeps bringing a level of player into their teams which is greater than we have, considering we don't have any kind of real structure underneath the professional game."

Asked if PSV are better than Rangers, Smith boxed clever, the way he hopes his team will do tonight. "That's a difficult one to assess," he replied. "They've got a stability about them that we've probably not had. In the games I've seen of them their team hasn't changed a great deal. But they don't have League Cup matches and other games to play during their season.But whether they are better than us or not will come out in these two games. What we need to show is whether we can handle the step up in quality from the previous round."

A big step-up, for sure.