RANGERS goalkeeper Allan McGregor tonight insisted the Scottish champions’ can reach the Europa League quarter-finals after pulling off a late wonder save to earn a 1-1 draw against Slavia Prague in the Czech Republic.

Former Scotland internationalist McGregor, playing for the first time since Steven Gerrard’s side had clinched the Premiership on Sunday, was unable to keep a stunning Nicolae Stanciu shot out of his net early on in the Eden Arena.

However, the 39-year-old wasn’t found wanting at the very death when he somehow managed to get a hand to a Lukas Masopust header at a corner in the final minute and keep the visitors, who had equalised through Filip Helander in the first-half, on level terms.

He is hopeful that Rangers, who reached the last 16 of the competition last season before losing to Bayer Leverkusen of Germany, can get the better of Jindrich Trpisovsky’s team in the rematch in Glasgow next Thursday night and progress further.  

Asked by BT Sport if he had seen the Masopust header late, he said: “A wee bit late. It was just one of these things – you react to it, you see it, you stick your hand out and hopefully it doesn’t go in. And it didn’t so happy days.”

McGregor continued: “Time will tell if a draw is a good result. I will tell you next Thursday if we are happy with it or not. But after the start of the game I thought we did well to come back in. I thought we created some good chances and obviously got a good goal. We just played better all round.

“I don’t think they changed a lot throughout the game. We knew what they were going to do, we knew what they were all about and we just didn’t handle it well in the first 15 or 20 minutes. But we did after that.

“At half-time the manager said that the result was okay, but the performance wasn’t great. He said if we upped our performance levels we could win the game or create more chances. So that was about it at half-time.”

Asked if he thought Rangers could go further, he said: “That is always your aim. We have the belief, but we are up against a good side so it will be difficult. But we have the belief to do it, we want to do it obviously and you go into every game, especially at this club, at this club wanting to win it in every competition.”

McGregor insisted it wasn't hard for Rangers to play so soon after celebrating their first Scottish title win in 10 years. “I think it was,” he said. “We knew how big a game it was for the club and for all the boys as well. So I think it was pretty easy.”