STEVEN GERRARD enters his 50th European tie as Rangers boss believing that Lyon could be the finest team his side will have faced so far.

The Light Blues host the Ligue 1 outfit in their Europa League Group A opener at Ibrox tonight.

“They are arguably the best,” said Gerrard, who confirmed that defender Filip Helander has had surgery on a knee problem which will keep him out for the foreseeable future, and that centre-back Connor Goldson is available again after Covid-19 isolation.

“At full strength, Lyon are very much a Champions League team with Champions League-calibre players — they have a manager who got this job on the back of doing ever so well as the Bayer Leverkusen manager.”

Peter Bosz, Lyon boss since May, guided Leverkusen to victory over the Scottish Champions in the last 16 of the previous Europa League competition.

“He has been here before, he knows what we are about, so this is a real big test tomorrow — and there is no doubt about it, we have to be at our best and that goes for both sides of the game,” Gerrard said.

He added that he is reading little into the news that Lyon captain Moussa Dembele, the former Celtic striker, will not travel due to injury.

“It would be very naive for me to think Lyon are going to be any weaker just because one player is missing,” Gerrard said.