Rangers ran out snug winners within the first leg of their Champions League Third Qualifying Spherical with a 3-0 victory over Czech aspect Viktoria Plzen.
New signing Djeidi Gassama additional endeared himself to the Ibrox devoted together with his third and fourth targets in three consecutive European video games.
The 21-year-old scored both aspect of striker Cyriel Dessers’ penalty as Russell Martin’s aspect gave themselves one foot within the competitors playoffs forward of a visit to the Doosan Area subsequent week.
Martin, who took over on the Scottish giants in June, had blasted his gamers following the 1-1 draw at Motherwell on Saturday and made some wide selection calls forward of this conflict, dropping captain James Tavernier and Nico Raskin to the bench.
However the choice appeared to repay as Rangers largely managed proceedings and emerged deserved winners on the night time.
New signings impress at Ibrox
Gassama, who joined the Scottish aspect from Sheffield Wednesday in the summertime, gave Martin’s males the right begin when he gratefully acquired Dessers’ neat layoff after 1 / 4 of an hour.
The winger took one contact earlier than ending coolly previous Florian Wiegele to provide his new employers the lead.
One other of Rangers’ new faces, Oliver Antman, was then denied a debut objective as his low drive was blocked on the road by Vaclav Jemelka.
The younger Finnish participant could not have gotten on the scoresheet however he had an enormous position in Rangers’ second objective, the 23-year-old jinking into the Plzen field earlier than being introduced down by Matej Vydra.
Dessers confidently dispatched the ensuing spot-kick to double the hosts’ benefit as Martin’s staff went into the break in a commanding place.
It was a lot of the identical after the restart, with Rangers in whole management of the tie.
A Mohamed Diomande effort rattled the crossbar earlier than Gassama nodded residence Antman’s pin-point cross for his second of the night.
From there, Plzen provided little or no by the use of a fightback. Rangers noticed out the sport and take a wholesome result in the Czech Republic on Tuesday.
