Dunfermline midfielder Josh Falkingham says Rangers wrapping up the league title could either work for or against his side as they prepare for today’s trip to Ibrox.
The 23-year-old looks set to be added to the Pars squad despite a niggling achilles injury and expects yet another tough encounter with Ally McCoist’s men, despite the Glasgow giants capturing the League One championship with eight games to spare in midweek.
“If it had been anybody else winning the league it might have worked for us, but because it’s Rangers they are expected to win the league,” he said.
“If we had won the league we would not have expected it and we might have been not getting drunk but partying or whatever, but I think Rangers will be very professional about it.
“It’s what they expected, it’s what they knew they were going to do, so I’d be very, very surprised if we went there and sensed they had a bit of a hangover or something like that from winning the league.
“I fully expect to go there and it will be as tough as any game there, because they have still got a lot to play for.
“It could work for us, it could work against us, and the game on Monday against Albion Rovers is obviously vital for them now, so you never know.”
Falkingham congratulated the league champions on winning the trophy but admits he would love to see his Pars spoil the party by becoming the first team to beat Rangers in the league this season.
He continued: “Fair play to Rangers, they deserve to take a lot of credit for what they have done this year.
“There’s a lot of media coverage on them which takes the onus off us, for instance, and we can sneak under the radar.
“To go on for that amount of games I think it’s 26 wins and two draws sometimes you have just got to take your hat off to them.
“So you’ve got to give credit where credit’s due and congratulate them on getting the league.
“But we know what our targets are and what we set out to do at the start of the season and we’re well on track for that.
“Obviously we’ll be going into the game in a win-win situation nobody really expects anything, you can go in and enjoy the game and try to be yourself and play the way you want to play.
“It would be massive for them to go the whole league season unbeaten, and that’s something that we’ve got to go and look at and be the first team to beat them.
“Obviously there have been a few teams who have picked off points against them but they are still unbeaten, so we’ll be desperate to break that run.”
Pars boss Jim Jefferies, who will be without Jordan Moore and Ryan Wallace through injury, hopes his team can show they have made progress against Rangers and believes there will be no drop in standards from the home side.
“Rangers will have their own little agendas to perform and they have got a winning mentality,” he said.
“What we’ve got to do is go and learn from the three games we’ve played against them.
“After the last game I told the players they can maybe make mistakes against other teams, but they won’t get away with it against a team with the quality of Rangers.
“So we need to be organised, go there and try and win the match, and we’ve got to do everything right.
“We’ve got to have belief and compete very well, so we’ll see what happens.”
Rangers boss Ally McCoist is unsure if David Templeton and Andy Little will play any further part in the new League One champions’ season.
The duo are both out of the clash with Dunfermline after limping off against Airdrie on Tuesday with groin and thigh issues respectively.
Both men will be sent for scans the morning after Monday night’s Scottish Cup quarter-final replay with Albion Rovers.
Meanwhile, the Pars confirmed that Ross Millen and Allan Smith have signed new contracts keeping them at East End Park until the end of next season.