James Penrice hoping Livingston can make Rangers fans turn on team in cup clash

Livingston left-back James Penrice hopes to frustrate Rangers and turn the Ibrox fans against their team.

Rangers were booed off by a section of supporters despite beating Motherwell 1-0 on Sunday to leapfrog their opponents into third place in the Premiership.

Expectation levels will again be high when David Martindale’s side visit Ibrox in Wednesday’s Viaplay Cup quarter-final as Rangers look to take advantage of Celtic’s early exit.

Penrice feels his side will have a better chance if they can feed the frustration that is simmering among the Rangers support.

Penrice said: “I think you look at that every game when you go away from home. Places like Hibs, Hearts, if you can turn the fans, then you are going to have a better chance of winning the game.

“Going there, keeping at 0-0 for the first 15 minutes, and trying to nick a goal, it would be massive for us, just to try and turn the tide.”

Livi have only lost twice in 11 games this season, the first a 4-0 defeat at Ibrox and then a 3-0 reverse against 10-man Celtic on Saturday.

Penrice admits it will be difficult to face Rangers so soon after taking on the cinch Premiership champions.

“Maybe because you don’t have the ball as much and you are chasing the ball,” he said. “It will be hard, but the boys will be up for it.

“If you look at the last game, we fell away for the last 15 minutes when we went to Ibrox, but the majority of the game we were really good.

“Saturday was really disappointing, I thought we should have got something out of the game, although fair play to them, they were brilliant when they went down to 10 men, they did their job well.

“It will be a different game on Wednesday, we will go there and try to frustrate them and try to get through.”

Livingston hope to have Mikey Devlin back from injury, while Michael Nottingham (Achilles) and Cristian Montano (calf) are getting close to fitness but will not make the game.