Ryan Naderi rescued Rangers from another disappointing European night as his second-half goal helped Derek McInnes’ side to victory in the first leg of their Conference League play-off against Jablonec.
The win is the second of McInnes’ tenure after their 5-1 League Cup triumph over St Mirren at the weekend.
It was an underwhelming first half for the hosts, their best chance coming from Vanja Dragojevic, who hit the post from the edge of the box after Naderi’s lay-off.
Beyond that, they didn’t do much to trouble Jan Hanus in the visiting goal for the opening 45 minutes.
Naderi broke the deadlock early in the second half, though. Dan Neil clipped the ball towards the back post where winger Daisuke Yokota managed to head it back across goal, where the striker was waiting to smash the ball into the roof of the net.
McInnes’ side could have had a second minutes later when Djeidi Gassama, one-on-one with the Jablonec goalkeeper, fired over from six yards out.
The visitors grew into the game after the goal without really troubling Rangers goalkeeper Ivor Pandur.
Despite being a goal up, Rangers found themselves a man down when substitute Cammy Devlin was shown a straight red card less than 10 minutes after coming on for his challenge on Jriri Slama.
Jablonec enjoyed a decent spell against the 10 men and felt they should have had a penalty for Olwethu Makhanya’s challenge on Richard Sedlacek, but the offside flag spared the hosts any further investigation.
The visitors could not manage to make the numerical advantage count in the closing stages and Rangers will now take a narrow advantage into next week’s game in the Czech Republic as they look for a place in the Conference League proper.