Peter Lovenkrands hopes an Old Firm brace will give Youssef Chermiti the confidence boost required to inspire Rangers in their push for a league and cup double this term.
The striker scored his eighth and ninth goals of the campaign on Sunday as he fired Danny Rohl’s side into a 2-0 derby lead at Ibrox. Rangers squandered the advantage after the break, though, and are six points off the pace being set by Hearts heading into the final nine Premiership fixtures.
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The Old Firm do battle once again this weekend in the quarter-finals of the Scottish Cup. Naturally, the winner will become the favourites to go on and lift the silverware come May.
Lovenkrands was no stranger to a moment of magic against Celtic in his own successful Ibrox career. And the Dane has backed Chermiti to lead the way for Rohl’s side in the coming weeks.
“It might be that it helps him to be confident because strikers need confidence,” Lovenkrands said at an event Premier Sports’ coverage of the derby this weekend. “You need something like that to go for you, you need the right drops for you.
“Sometimes you don't think about it too much because you've got confidence. If you start overthinking it, that's a brand new problem, it starts creeping in. If you've got too much time, certain strikers like it when you have a lot of time to think, some don't.
“It depends on who you are. It's different because you can take someone like a Kris Boyd, barely scored against Celtic for Rangers, but scored against everybody else all the time. Certain strikers are just different.
“You create better chances against others, some you like playing against, some you don't. For me, I say it goes down to confidence. It goes down to if you can build on that. Because I felt it myself, when you're on a good run, everything seemed to fall into place because you've got more confidence.
“You're trying things that you probably wouldn't do if you didn't have the confidence and stuff like that. You just need to keep building and get the chances, try and put it away.”
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