The formation changes that Giovanni van Bronckhorst has made to the Rangers team has benefitted a few key players, one of those is Ryan Jack.
This may seem like a strange statement to make given that the Scotland international has missed practically the whole season after surgery to his spine in the spring, the latest intervention that was made to hopefully rid him of the calf injuries that have been troubling him for the last few seasons.
Now that we play with two rather than three midfielders there is less pressure on Jack to get himself fully fit again and, as we have seen in the past, he plays his best football as the solitary sitter dictating play – Kamara is first choice and until he leaves for an exorbitant transfer fee, Jack will have to do little other than back him up and allow him to have the odd game off but, he has to get fit first and, as reported by Chris Jack, via GiveMeSport, that might not be until February:
“He’s had this latest setback and it seems a bit of a long road.
“Another couple of weeks before he’s back in the fold, another couple of weeks to get him back up to speed and then another couple of weeks for him to establish himself in the team again. So, it’s looking like a frustrating start to the year for Ryan.”
This message contradicts what Van Bronckhorst said earlier in December when news of a recurrence first broke, he expects him to be ready to go sometime in January:
“Ryan we hope to have back as soon as possible, but I think that would be around the winter break or during the winter break.
“So we hope to have Ryan back fully fit when we start back after the winter break.
It will be hugely frustrating for the player as well as the manager, fans have little patience when it comes to this sort of scenario but he still has a year to run on his current contract and should be afforded every opportunity to return to his best, we only have to look at John Souttar at Hearts to see that it isn’t wise to write a player off who looks to have been beaten by injury.
Jack could yet be the player who steps into Kamara’s shoes when the inevitable happens and the Finland international heads for pastures new, but he needs patience and he needs time.