Here's every word the manager had to say ahead of his side's meeting with Benfica in the Europa League last 16.

Your thoughts heading into this game?

It is a good team with a lot of qualities. It is maybe not the perfect situation that they come out of two games that they lost because there will be a reaction. You know how these things go in clubs where there is a lot of expectation. Players want to step up and they want to react. I don’t doubt that there will be a really good Benfica team tomorrow.

How would you describe the size of the challenge?

Huge. But because of that also exciting for us. There are not many games for Rangers that you don’t have much to lose. Normally you are the favourites, you need to win, you need to be dominant, you need to score a lot of goals, the expectations are high. In this case you need to be realistic. You know they have more than double of your budget but we are really ambitious. We are going to work really hard to get a result in the two games and to qualify. We are also convinced all of us that it is not only about money and about budget but about other things and that we are going to show our quality and work really hard in the two games.

You could put a lot of pressure on them if you start well?

Yeah. But that is every game like that. You want to start well. That is nothing new. I never tell my team to start playing football after 30 minutes or after one half. It is no different mindset. The only difference is you can have a game when you have less of the ball than you usually have. We need to have the right mindset to be ready for that also.

How is the squad looking injury wise?

Not like I wanted. As you probably know, we miss four wingers tomorrow. So four wingers who are not there. Ross maybe also. We will see. He did the warm-up today but didn’t train with the team, he did individual work. We will see tomorrow if he is available to play some minutes or not. The other four wingers are out. So I have five wingers and maybe four of them are out so that is a bad situation. We miss two playmakers with Kieran Dowell and Todd Cantwell and we miss one striker with Danilo. That is a lot of offensive quality that we miss tomorrow. It is about finding other solutions.

How big a challenge is it to find those solutions?

It is a challenge. As a coach you need to see do you stick to the same system or do you change? I need to think about that. Not anymore, but I had to think about that together with my staff what to do in this situation and towards an opponent like Benfica and how to play. We made some conclusions about that and we will see with Ross tomorrow if he is available and how many minutes he is available. That is a question with our medical staff.

What are the qualities within this group that make them able to step up in these occasions?

The hunger, the desire. Also you can play a different kind of football. I don’t know if you have been outside already but if you see the pitch, it is like Ibrox and you can play good football. That changes the style of play. And everyone knows that all of Europe is watching them. They did already really good things, it was a very strong performance to finish first in a group like that in the Europa League. Now it is a new challenge and a really huge one because Benfica will be ready, it will not be that they are underestimating. They need to react themselves so getting a result here would be a huge thing.

Is this game a distraction you could do without?

No. And I said it in December. There were some people of the board who told me before our European game that it was maybe more important that we won the League Cup. I told them I never go that way because I want players who are hungry for every occasion and want to win every occasion. It doesn’t work that way. It is not like a menu in a restaurant that you pick out and now we are going to perform there or there. Like this, you don’t create a winning culture. OK it is a busy schedule, that is true, but it is about us working really hard with all the players, all the staff to get the players ready and for the players also to show that they are ready for that kind of competition. We are going to full for this game, going to go full at the weekend and go full again on Thursday. We will go like that until the end of the season.

Did it surprise you to hear that?

No because it was really with good intentions. The hunger to win a trophy again was so big in the club that everybody put emphasis on that. But afterwards, after our night in Spain, they were also really happy. And after winning the League Cup they were even more happy that they had both. I think everybody understands that we want to get the best out of everything and that we are going to work hard for that.

Do the injuries change your approach to this game?

Yes, otherwise we would have put other players. I need to make a decision if we change the system or do we put players in a position that they are less used to playing. That is the decision to make. If everybody was fit it would be a different starting eleven, everyone understands that.

Does that mean you would have come here to win?

We come to win now also. I never start a game to lose or to play a draw. I don’t believe in that. I don’t believe in putting the bus and only defending. I never done that. When it was with smaller teams to play in Madrid or in Paris or in Leipzig with Brugge, we always attacked to win games. I don’t think if you have a culture of that and working on every day to create chances to score goals and then for one game you are going to do the total opposite, the moment you get a goal against you kill the minds of your players. We will always play to create chances, like we did in Spain in that game when we defended really well and we attacked also. It is going to be the same tomorrow. We need to defend really well because they have a lot of qualities in that way.

Are you worried the volume of injuries makes it difficult to keep going on three fronts?

I don’t believe impossible exists. We need to find solutions if there are problems, like now in positions, like in December when we didn’t have one midfielder in one moment. We found solutions there also and we need to do that. My team is also ready to do that, to give everything for the team whatever position.

Benfica have never lost a Europa game here – is history there to be made?

That is a nice stat, yeah. A nice challenge. I hope so but I know for that we need to be on our toes and overperforming, you need a little bit of luck, you need a very good goalkeeper on his day to be really strong and you need to be very efficient. That is a lot of things. But we are with a very huge motivation to get those things out of the game.

You have had some special nights at Ibrox so do you need something to work with?

That is always the target. We want to win tomorrow but if you are in the last ten minutes and you feel it is more important to defend the result we will do it also. We are not naïve. But of course you want to go with a result to Glasgow and you know with this game at Ibrox anything can happen. I don’t want to think too much about results before this game, I want to put all our minds on trying to  win the game, not by being satisfied with anything less.

Is it important to remember it is only half-time in the tie tomorrow?

That is important and to keep good control in what we are doing. That has always been our philosophy. Never running crazy out of position, it is always with a structure. We want to see that tomorrow also again. Knowing there are two games, you still have the second chance at Ibrox. I don’t want to think about second chances, I want my team to go full for the first chance already.