11-player drama for Rangers

Rangers fans have been boosted and disappointed in equal measure by mixed news coming out of Ibrox with regards the playing squad.

A total of 10 players are affected by both good and bad news respectively, and Ibrox Noise takes you through the lot of it.

To get the bad out of the way;

Lee Wallace has been confirmed as continuing his recovery from a hernia having had a second op over the winter. While manager Graeme Murty hopes to have the player back reasonably soon, the lack of time scale suggests it could still be a number of weeks before the club captain is back training.

Meanwhile Bruno Alves’ rehabilitation in Portugal is taking longer than expected. The 36-year old suffered a calf strain in the Old Firm clash, and has been out since, and Murty has stated the timescale on him is more extended than previously hoped. Furthermore, Italian strugglers Benevento are reported to be interested in securing him, and ‘reliable journalists’ in the UK have claimed he is wantaway too.

Next up is Ryan Jack. The defensive midfielder is a definite absentee tomorrow through injury and once again only further examination will reveal the extent of the problem. Strangely Murty, having previously justified the tackle on him against Motherwell by Kipre, has now confirmed it is the cause of his extended absence and a scan is to be done.

Penultimately is Ross McCrorie. His ankle/foot injury is almost exactly as severe as we brought to you some weeks ago (thankfully not an outright break) and he is set to have a scan on it – timescale is not known yet officially but some have put 12 weeks on him. True or not, Rangers could be without him for some period yet.

Last but not least Graham Dorrans continues his rehabilitation and is out of plaster. This could be filed under good but it is never good not having your best players.

Onto the definitely good;

Rangers are likely set to hand debuts to all four winter signings tomorrow, be it from the bench or starting XI. Jason Cummings, Sean Goss, Jamie Murphy and Russell Martin are all in the match squad and highly chanced to feature in Fraserburgh. This adds extra intrigue to an already fascinating cup tie against minnows.

Furthermore, contrary to reports, James Tavernier has confirmed he is not interested in leaving Rangers. A sport aggregation site made a claim that he had not only failed to accept a new deal, but claimed he had rejected talks in the first place. The player himself tweeted to dispel this as ‘fake news’.

And last but not least as many of you will know Martin Canning has dropped Greg Docherty from Hamilton’s weekend cup clash to stop him being tied for Rangers. The 21-year old is on his way to Rangers but as yet no word on fee agreement or medical. We hope this will be finalised soon.