LEON KING is confident his Champions League baptism of fire will stand him in good stead and help him forge a successful career at Ibrox.

The 18-year-old was thrown in at the deep end this term as boss Giovanni van Bronckhorst was forced to field him in what turned out to be a chastening Group A campaign.

Rangers were outplayed and outclassed by Liverpool, Napoli and Ajax and the way in which King handled himself was one of the few positives that could be taken at Ibrox.

King put pen-to-paper on a new long-term deal last week as he committed himself to working under boss Michael Beale and is now ready to kick-on once again after emerging through the most challenging period of his fledgling career.

King said: "It was a massive learning curve and it’s only going to stand me in good stead if we ever get to play those sort of games again. Hopefully we do in the next year or two years.

"It was an up-and-down campaign in the Champions League for myself and the team. Results aside, it’s an amazing experience to play in the Champions League at such a young age, playing every single game.

"It’s still quite raw. I’ve still not really had a chance to sit back and look at it because it’s been non-stop really.

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"Once the dust settles and I can actually manage to look back at it, I will realise that it was an amazing experience for myself.

"At a club like Rangers, you are going to come up against these players at some point in your career so it’s better to get it done early doors.

"That’s the teams and the players we want to be playing against in the midweek European games in the near future.

"You can’t get too high with the highs or too low with the lows. It’s just about bouncing back in the next game. We had so many games so close together that we didn’t really have any time to dwell on defeats."