If you thought Rangers injury list was bad before we took on Aberdeen, have a look at it now…
Filip Helander, Connor Goldson, John Souttar, Ben Davies, Ridvan Yilmaz, Ryan Jack, Glen Kamara, Nnamdi Ofoborh, Tom Lawrence, Ianis Hagi, Kemar Roofe, aș well as having John Lundstram suspended for our next game, that’s a decent team on paper.
What is frustrating is that, just as we seem to be finding combinations that work well eg. Lundstram, James Sands and Malik Tillman in midfield, someone gets injured.
It is the same with Ridvan Yilmaz, Aberdeen didn’t know how to handle him at all when he was cutting inside and driving at their midfield, not only that but he was overlapping Ryan Kent to good effect too. There was a lot to be encouraged about before his early departure with a hamstring injury.
The good news is, he might not be out for as long as first feared, paper reports of him being out until after the World Cup might not necessarily be true as revealed by Giovanni van Bronckhrost after the match:
“Ridvan had to come off because he felt his hamstring and Ben had a moment in the beginning of the game but could play on. I didn’t want to take any risk. We have to assess him tomorrow and see how he feels. I don’t know yet. I think we will have Ridvan out for a couple of weeks but for Ben, I still don’t know.”
Our last fixture before the World Cup is November 12 so it will be a race for Ridvan to get fit, in Davies’s case, that he was able to play on suggests that it might just be a knock rather than anything too sinister, his availability for Ajax at home is crucial if we are to salvage anything from a disastrous Champions League campaign.
Thoughts of a win might well just be turning to hoping that we get through it without any more injuries.