Will JJ and Jimmy make big changes for Kilmarnock?

In case it had been forgotten by everyone, and we’re pretty sure it had, we have a massive match of football on Saturday!

Steve Clarke’s recently-stuttering Kilmarnock side come to Ibrox, finally struggling for the first time since the ex-Chelsea assistant took charge, and if there was a better time to face them, we would love to hear it.

With Graeme Murty no longer in the Rangers picture, team selection and training is left to caretaker coaching pair Jimmy Nicholl and Jonatan Johansson, and usually when a manager leaves and a caretaker takes his place, fans expecting dramatic and wholesale changes are left disappointed as the temporary manager elects to keep things as they are.

However, there are whispers Nicholl and Murty didn’t exactly get on like a house on fire, and their frequent lack of dialogue in the technical area certainly spoke volumes too. Pun not intended.

Nicholl is a true Rangers man, and we do feel a sense of being a little safer in his hands than his predecessor, and over the next three matches it is absolutely critical he and JJ figure some way to ensure Rangers finish second.

There is no denying there is a squad in there that is better than it has delivered in recent months. It has been dreadfully mismanaged and we clutch onto a lingering hope that most of that was down to Murty’s incompetence – Nicholl and JJ are both infinitely more experienced as coaches and both understand Rangers immensely.

As for changes? Killie will be stuffy, and determined to regain form. So it has to be a Rangers team set up to invite Killie to break with tradition and come out more – to try and attack us, allowing us to pick them off with incisive flank play and sharper play through the middle. Use Sean Goss’s vision in partnership with Docherty’s graft and muscle, while Candeias and Murphy feed the strikers.

Our formation choice would be 4-4-2 for this one:

Alnwick; Tavernier, Alves, Martin, John; Candeias, Goss, Docherty, Murphy; Morelos, Cummings

Back to basics.

We shall see what Jimmy and JJ concoct come Saturday.