Rangers’ gaffer Pedro Caixinha has said that Bruno Alves is making good progress in his recovery from a calf injury ahead of this week’s tie with Hamilton Academicals.
Having missed out on the Celtic clash, Caixinha told the Official Site that Alves was making good progress and he was hopeful that he would get a first team return on Friday evening.
‘Bruno after the three days he spent in Madrid, he arrived in very, very good condition, much better than he left, so he is still with the physios trying to recover. We think it is still possible he plays on Friday but we need to check and keep assessing.’
Turning attentions to Hamilton following defeat to Celtic, Caixinha was confident we would return to winning ways – he also spoke about his decision to substitute Carlos Pena in the last game, dismissing suggestions he was struggling with the pace of the game.
‘Decisions and the restriction of space and time have nothing to do with fitness. I can show you the data which we have on a daily basis, and the data basically goes for the total distance covered, that`s one point, and you also have the high intensity runs that the players do in each one of the sessions. I can tell you that since a long time from now Carlos is in the top three of that list.’
He also rubbished reports in the press that he’d been critical of Pena following the defeat.
‘You can take your old tapes since day one until this day and you are not going to watch me saying one thing in one moment and saying another thing in another one. When I was young the boys used to call me elephant, you know why? Because elephants have a great memory and I have a great memory, so I know exactly what I say in each one of the moments. I can tell you when we took the team pic back at Ibrox, that was that discussion about Carlos` fitness and I referred to the point that Carlos would need to improve in that moment in time. I never referred to it after the match. In that specific action we identified that he needs to improve – he still needs to improve. We know the type of player we have and the work that needs doing.’
