Rangers take on Aberdeen at Ibrox this afternoon and Steven Gerrard will be hoping that his side can continue the start to the season that has seen them go nine points clear of Celtic.
The Parkhead side may have games in hand but every weekend sees the chance to keep the pressure on with no free spaces for postponed games until next year, getting another win against a difficult side would be another positive sign that Rangers aren’t going away anytime soon this season.
Despite having almost half the squad away on international duty, Gerrard and his coaching staff will still have been able to work with almost a full team of first-team regulars and for this reason we could see a slightly different line-up to the one that played on the opening day of the season.
This is the team we could go with to take on Derek McInnes’s side.
There have been no real injury worries during the international break other than Bongani Zungu picking up a slight knock, and a decision will be made on him nearer the time, but it will still be good to allow those that have been away to recover properly with a series of mid-week fixtures coming up.
That we can name a front three of Ryan Kent, Kemar Roofe and Cedric Itten and them all be free of the burden of international football is a sign of the depth the squad now has, as is the fact that almost the whole defence and Allan McGregor will have been training together for the last fortnight.
It may be that Gerrard has players return that are fully fit, those like Alfredo Morelos who didn’t play as many minutes as Glen Kamara, for example, and feels that it isn’t a risk to throw them back so soon, he also gave a few of them a rest against Hamilton before the break – something that could well work in his favour when picking his team.
Rangers didn’t allow Aberdeen a single shot on target in the first game of the season and if we play to our potential, we could see a repeat, with hopefully a more comfortable scoreline.