'Cerny is a bullet' – Flying Rangers star gets Athletic Bilbao anxious as boss namechecks 2 Ibrox stars he's wary of

Ernesto Valverde knows Cerny may well pack the punch that could send end their dreams of winning the Europa League on home turf

Both teams fired blanks in the Ibrox opener last week.

But anxious Athletic coach Ernesto Valverde is worried his side could be gunned down by a Vaclav Cerny bullet, writes Andy Newport in Bilbao.

The La Liga big guns are hoping to propel themselves a huge step closer to next month’s Europa League final in their own San Mames home.

But they’ll have to be quick on the draw to get past Barry Ferguson’s Thursday night specialists.

Valverde has full respect for the Glasgow giants and especially their sharpshooters up front after watching them blast their way through to the last eight.

He identified wideman Cerny and striker Cyriel Dessers as the high caliber pair his team will need to keep an eye on if they are to trigger a famous victory.

The former Barca boss said: “Rangers have a good formation, players who play well in the space.

“Dessers is constantly running in to the space, being a reference player, a beacon for his team. He’s a dangerous player.

“Their players from the outside are very well positioned, whether they're playing James Tavernier in defence or in the midfield.

“Then they have Cerny, who's a bullet.

“He’s very precise when it comes to defining moments. He's a player that in the space can hurt you.”

Rangers shrugged off domestic struggles as they battled valiantly to a clean sheet in the opening tie at Ibrox.

Valverde was only kidding when he said he wouldn’t mind seeing a repeat of the indiscipline that saw Robin Propper dismissed just 14 minutes into the game. But he was serious when he warned his men to expect another stoic display from the Scots.

“I'd love for them to say ‘we're going to play with 10’. Wonderful,” he grinned, “But I don't know, I don't think so.

“They have a good counter-attack, and at the same time, it's a big team, it's a league, they can play dominating the game, because they're forced to dominate the game when they play in Scotland.

“So they have players to do it. Obviously, when you suffer a sending off, they got further behind the ball and waited a bit for their options.

“We were missing a bit of clarity, a bit of speed in the game. We had options to score from there. We didn’t manage it but now there's another chance. It's a different game. We have to start and we'll see how the game plays out tomorrow.”

Rangers know defeat will kill off any remaining trophy hopes this season. But the Lions are under pressure too as they bid to walk out in front of their own stadium when the competition comes to its climax here on May 21.

But Valverde shrugged off any suggestion that he and his players could be dragged down by the weight of expectation on their shoulders.

He said: “It's a game that, if we win, will continue in the competition.

“Obviously, it's a definitive game. We've played definitive games here, we've won some of them, we've lost some of them this year.

“In any case, we're going to play our game, the one we're used to. Obviously, we're going to take into account how good Rangers are, what they can do and what we can do.

“We know when the final is, because it was announced a long time ago.

“We have a game tomorrow, which is the key to playing the semi-final, which has only happened twice in the history of Atletico.

"Let's see if we can play a third time.

“Rangers are a team that, not long ago, played in the Europa League final. Three or four years ago, against Eintracht, if I remember correctly.

“And they lost only on penalties. So we have to respect them, because they're a great team, because they've shown it in the competition, also in the first leg, and they have a story to defend.”

Gers might be toiling domestically but Valverde has full respect for a side that has this season claimed big scalps on the road with victories over Malmo, Nice and Fenerbahce.

“I don’t care about the team that has struggled on their own field,” he said. “What I do know is that it's going to be dangerous here.

“If we imagine that tomorrow we want to be dangerous for them, then we have to realise that they're going to be dangerous for us.

“We have to keep that in mind, because in this Europa League they've had good games, and I think, if I'm not mistaken, that they only lost the game against United in the last minute. They've won all the other games.”