Jim McIntyre has urged his Queen of the South side to "embrace" their first visit to Ibrox this season.
This is the simple of instruction of a football manager who does not wish his players to appear daunted by the challenge which awaits them, a request to avoid treating an apparently more illustrious team with too much respect.
It is possible that McIntyre will ask his players to walk through the front door at Ibrox this afternoon and then decline to wipe their feet.
There are unlikely to be too many muddy footprints leading into the visiting dressing room, of course, since there are seven players missing from Queens' squad. That is likely to cause as much anxiety among their supporters as a share issue does at Ibrox, with Chris Mitchell, Mark Kerr, Stephen McKenna, Paul Burns, Michael Paton and Ian McShane all injured. James Fowler - a central midfielder and the club's assistant manager - is also suspended.
McIntyre has filled the gaps in his squad with optimism this week and hopes that his players will prove their resolve by maintaining an unbeaten start to the SPFL Championship campaign. "This time last week I knew we would be five down and that obviously went up to six when James was sent off," said McIntyre.
"To then lose Ian is a real blow and that means not only are we missing seven players - four of them can play in the centre of midfield. We just have to go to Ibrox without them and other players now have the chance to shine in a big game."
The audiences have diminished inside Ibrox this season as erstwhile season-ticket holders stay away in a protest against the board, but it remains a stage for players in the Championship. Queens stole the show in a Ramsdens Cup tie there two years ago - there was a goal in the last minute of normal time and then a tiumphant penalty shootout - and McIntyre is eager for his players to emulate that famous victory.
"We have several boys that won at Rangers in the Ramsdens Cup a couple of years ago and it is good to have that experience in the team," he added. "There was a big crowd at that game, it was a big occasion and they did fantastically well to win that night.
"For the ones that have not played there before it is a great opportunity to test themselves against players who have played at the highest level in Scotland and internationally. My message to the players will be not to fear the game but to embrace it."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article