In just a few weeks time, Michael Beale has the chance to put right the wrongs of his first spell at Rangers by winning a cup at the first attempt. Zero out of a possible nine alongside Steven Gerrard is not a record that the history books look back on favourably, especially when it was Celtic hoovering them up with apparent ease.
As has become the custom though, the Gers gaffer will have to pick his team with a few notable exceptions unavailable with John Lundstram the latest first-team player to be struck by the injury curse of 2022/23 – there is hope that he could make it but he will be short of game time.
And it is in the midfield where Beale faces his toughest call – does he go with the tried and tested duo of Ryan Jack and Glen Kamara or does he turn to the new and exciting Nicolas Raskin and Todd Cantwell?
If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got. A saying that springs to mind on this occasion.
Now, I’m not saying that we should jettison both Kamara and Jack or throw Cantwell into midfield against Celtic, however, has Jack and Kamara ever worked as a pairing? Raskin adds a dynamism that has been sorely missed at times this season and is the natural to replace Lundstram, who would have started if he was fit, the only question is – who does Beale pick to partner him?
Malik Tillman’s defensive work is hugely under appreciated and he was a driving force at number eight against Ross County at the weekend but, again, I don’t know if Beale would want to risk being as open.
For me, I’d go with Kamara. He has shown glimpses of being back to his best and he always operates better with more space plus, the weight of creativity has been lifted from his shoulders with the way that Beale has set his team up.
Win the midfield battle and we have a chance and the starting line up will give us the clearest indication of how we will go about attempting to win our first league cup in over a decade, a record equally as bad as Beale’s under Gerrard in the cups.