Rangers will face Swansea City in a friendly tie before Michael Beale's Premiership dugout debut in December.

The QPR boss has today officially confirmed as the new Rangers manager.

He returns to Ibrox a little over 12-months after leaving as first team coach under Steven Gerrard.

His impressive work at QPR, as well as his background knowlege of the club, has led to the Gers board deciding upon him as being the man to replace Giovanni van Bronckhorst at the helm.

His first league game in charge will be against Hibs on December 15 after the conclusion of the winter break in Scotland.

But before that, Rangers will face a friendly match against Swansea, it has been announced.

Former Gers defender Russell Martin, who is Swans manager, has revealed the news.

He confirmed the game when speaking to the Swansea Independent, with a bounce game against Hearts also arranged for the Championship outfit. 

He said: "It came about because we needed games during that period. We can't not have any games going into Norwich.

"We'll focus more on the physical side more than anything else. Then we need a couple of weeks on the training pitch and working on things before we go into the next block of games.

"Within that, we needed some games. We don't want to play another Championship team because it's counter productive, playing against someone you're going to play against.

"Why would you give them a chance to play against you and work out some stuff? Premier League teams don't go back until two-and-a-half weeks after us so none of them want games until the week after when we're playing our first league game.

"So the only other option was to try and go abroad or we can use the contacts we've got up the road, me personally and Andy Goldie can sort out some games that way, so we have. We're really pleased with the quality of games we've got.

"Hearts are great, they're playing us before they go away and then Rangers are coming back and playing us, so it'll be two really good tests for us. We'll get everyone some minutes.

"It's going to be freezing, we can't afford warm weather training! It'll really serve a purpose and get everyone together again."

Rangers will also play Bayer Leverkusen. 

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