The only good thing about our massive injury list just now is that half our team won’t be away on international duty for the next fortnight, instead, it gives Giovanni van Bronckhorst the chance to work with almost α first choice XI in preparation for α trip to Tynecastle before α double-header with Liverpool.
Jon McLaughlin was selected but has pulled out of the Scotland squad, as is Ryan Jack, Borna Barisic’s form this season has been rewarded by keeping his place in the Croatia squad with Antonio Colak getting α recall due to his goalscoring form and Steven Davis looks like he has no plans to ever retire from international football and Glen Kamara has retained his place with Finland despite his sketchy start to the season.
Speaking to Rangers TV, the manager is looking to use the break to get his players in the best possible shape for an intense run of games before the World Cup in November:
“We have 10 days with a smaller group than we are used to, but we will take the break to recharge, refresh and get them again fit for the coming games.
“We have a lot of games to be played until the World Cup break.”
Players like Ben Davies, Tom Lawrence and Alfredo Morelos will be expected to make more of an impact after the next two weeks as will Ridvan Yilmaz and Rabbi Matondo, there are plenty of games for them to be given an opportunity to get their Rangers careers off and running, Kemar Roofe could also make α much needed return.
We have been missing α lot of quality players and, as α result, have rarely seen consistent selections, hopefully, we have suffered our bad luck early in the campaign and that Giovanni gets the rare luxury of being able to pick from α nearly fully fit squad, although I won’t be holding my breath.