Rangers Group D rivals in the Europa League, Standard Liege, have been hit with a massive blow ahead of their fixture against Lech Poznan this evening, according to Rangers News.
The Belgian side are going to have to face the Poles without six of their players, some of which played against the Light Blues in the opening round of games due to testing positive for Covid-19.
Liege will face an anxious wait in the lead up to kick off with them having three players unavailable when they took on Steven Gerrard’s side and had others test positive after the match.
A statement from the Juniper League side said:
“The results of the latest Covid-19 tests unfortunately indicate that 6 Red players are positive: Collins Fai, Konstantinos Laifis, Damjan Pavlovic, Eden Shamir, Moussa Sissako and Abdoul Fessal Tapsoba,” reads a Standard statement.
“These players will therefore not be part of the Standard de Liège delegation which will fly to Poland on Wednesday morning.”
Although it might not directly affect Rangers, there could be ramifications for the group, Liege were drawn as second seeds and would have been expected to get something in Poland but now that task has just become significantly more difficult.
Should Covid regulations for EL be stricter?
Yes
No
An ideal scenario would be for us to get something in Portugal and for the two games between Liege and Poznan to be draws, giving decent breathing space with two fixtures at Ibrox still to come.
Rangers don’t face the Belgians again until the beginning of December so they should have a handle on the outbreak in their squad by then, the last thing we want is any of our own players being put at risk given the start we have made to the season, both domestically and on the continent.