Thomson at his best for Barça test

Rangers FC midfielder Kevin Thomson enjoyed one of his "best" but "hardest" games as the Glasgow club edged closer to the knockout stages with a 0-0 draw against FC Barcelona.

Hard work
The 23-year-old, who joined Rangers from Hibernian FC for €3m in January, was making only his third UEFA Champions League appearance and while delighted to have secured another point against Barcelona, Thomson admitted it was hard work keeping Frank Rijkaard's 'Fantasticos' at bay. "It was one of my best games for Rangers, but it was also one of the hardest," Thomson told uefa.com. "The boys put so much effort into it and the work-rate was second to none. At the same time we are under no illusions.

'A fantastic side'
"They are a fantastic side with great individual players but the desire and the work rate got us over the winning line," he added. "It was a case of all hands on deck at times. They've got a squad full of world class players and I think it showed how well they kept the ball and how hard they made us work. But as I said we worked really hard to close them down and as the game went on they found it harder to create clear cut chances against us, so we can take a lot of credit from the way we went about our job."

Costly booking
The one cloud on the evening for Thomson was a booking midway through the first half for a tug on Thierry Henry's shirt which rules him out of the return trip to the Camp Nou on Matchday 4. However, having taken seven points from their first three fixtures, Thomson can at least console himself in the knowledge that Rangers are now favourites alongside Barcelona to progress to the knockout stages.

Final step
"If anyone had offered us seven points from three games before this group got under way, we'd have snapped their hand off," said Thomson. "Another win should be enough to see us through to the knockout stages and we have three more opportunities to do that, starting with the game in Barcelona. It's obviously a blow to be suspended but it never went through my mind when I was playing. I just got on with it and tried to do my job as best as possible. After the game you begin to reflect and obviously I'll be disappointed when the game comes round, but hopefully there will be more big games to play in."