Every Rangers fan knows the extent of our current injury problems, not that you will ever see the Scottish media using a depleted Rangers squad as the potential for a poor performance in the build-up to a derby.
It’s an issue that Giovanni van Bronckhorst has had to deal with since he took over from Steven Gerrard and the Gers gaffer has yet to experience picking his starting XI from a fully fit squad.
A tough task at Parkhead just got a little bit more difficult with the news that one of our summer signings and form players, has been added to the queue for the treatment table though, as revealed on the club’s Twitter feed:
“Lawrence is not available for tomorrow, he will be out for a few weeks. It’s never a good feeling to miss big games. Lawrence has had a great start to his Rangers career and is unfortunate he will miss the next couple of weeks.
“We still have to perform with the strong squad we have available. Very excited for the game tomorrow, a big game and we are ready for the task. We are ready for the challenge we face.
“Davies is training with the squad at the moment which is positive. Roofe is close to full training with the group. Helander & Souttar will be out for a little longer. Hagi is following his recovery and is on schedule for his return after the world cup.
“On Tav (Tavernier) I heard the rumours, he trained today as normal and will be in the squad. We are good to go.
“Alfredo (Morelos) is in the squad for tomorrow. I had a good chat with him, he understood the message and has been training very hard – he is an important player for us. Alfredo is a player who can change games.”
Having Tom Lawrence out is a blow but Scott Arfield is also in decent form and has played that inside-right role on numerous occasions, there are similarities in how they play the role and allow James Tavernier more space to overlap.
Ben Davies returning to the squad will also be a boost, Leon King is providing cover but having an extra and experienced central defender would make it look a lot stronger, he will be keen to get up and running in what has been a stop-start Rangers career so far but the Old Firm might come a bit too soon.
It’s interesting that he was aware of the rumours about Tavernier being out injured too but the headline news is the return of Alfredo Morelos, he hasn’t had to start from scratch over the last couple of weeks and should be a lot closer to full fitness now – an El Bufalo winning goal would certainly put a lot of doubters back in their box.