Pressure points up for grabs as out-of-form Genk come to Ibrox

An under-performing team, a sub-standard start to the season, a manager under serious pressure with supporters calling for his removal. Sound familiar?

For Rangers, read Genk. For Russell Martin, read Thorsten Fink. The parallels are uncanny between the clubs who will go head-to-head at Ibrox in their Europa League opener on Thursday night.

The difference is, Fink, unlike Martin, has already had a year in charge, a season that started superbly but tailed off before ending pretty badly, with just two wins from their last eight in the league, leaving Genk six points behind Club Brugge and nine behind champions Union St Gilloise, both of whom have been to Ibrox recently with contrasting fortunes.

Nonetheless, it represented Genk's highest placing since finishing runners-up in 2022-23 and supporters would have been hoping for another title challenge under the German Fink this season. (As an aside they last won the league in 2019 under none other than Philippe Clement.)

That seems a long shot even at this early stage, as they languish in 14th, just two places off the bottom with two wins from eight and already 12 points behind the leaders USG.

An inability to keep the opposition out appears to be their Achilles heel – no clean sheets in their 10 matches this season is a statistic they will need to improve upon if they are to turn their fortunes around.

New signing Tobias Lawal has taken over between the sticks after an early-season injury to Hendrik van Crombrugge, who himself had played second fiddle to teenager Mike Penders for the second half of last season.

Penders signed for Chelsea at the beginning of last season but came back on loan and is tipped to be the latest in a long line of top-class goalkeepers produced by Genk's renowned academy, with Thibaut Courtois among its most famous graduates.

The loss of last season's top scorer Tolu Arokodare to Wolves can't have helped. His 23 goals earned him a £23m switch to Molineux, although he only moved on 1 September so the drop-off in form was already well under way before he departed.

The good news for Genk is that another recent product from that seemingly never-ending conveyor belt of talent, Kostas Karetsas, should be fit to play having missed the past couple of games.

The 17-year-old Greece international, who tormented Scotland on his first start at Hampden in March after a promising debut in the first leg of the Nations League play-off, was born and bred in Genk and was wanted by the Belgium national team before opting to play for the nation of his parents.

Like the rest of the Genk team, he is perhaps yet to hit his stride this season but he enjoyed his last trip to Glasgow and will be keen to be just as influential this time around.

Someone who endured a less fruitful time in Scotland is Genk's current number nine Hyeon-gyu Oh. His one-and-a-half seasons at Celtic were not disastrous – 12 goals in 47 games – but he started just six times before departing last summer for Belgium where his 12 goals and overall performances looked like they were going to earn him a big-money move to Stuttgart.

However, that move broke down, apparently over medical concerns, just before the transfer deadline and so he could well be the man leading the line against Rangers on Thursday.

Thomas Buffel, a former favourite of both clubs, has been predicting a win for the Belgians at Ibrox, but this is a team well below the calibre of the Club Brugge side that demolished Rangers a few weeks ago.

Neither Genk nor Rangers come into the game anywhere near their best, but if either hit form on Thursday, victory should be theirs.