Massive Rangers boost; £7M pair to return for Stevie?

After Steven Gerrard’s strong criticisms of the players against Aberdeen, there may be a few changes on Sunday with a number of previously-unavailable players returning to significantly freshen things up.

Foremost are the returning Ryan Kent and Borna Barisic, who are ready to start if Gerrard elects to deploy them, and frankly Rangers could use their invention.

The entire left side for Rangers has been a real problem the past few matches, with Glenn Middleton struggling and consequently losing his brief foray in the side, while left back has been a categorical eyesore with both Jon Flanagan and Andy Halliday failing to convince there.

So the return of Barisic, a Croatia international let’s not forget, and Kent, an absolute livewire when in form, comes at a crucial time with Rangers’ difficult December well and truly underway.

We may also see some freshening up in midfield, with the struggling Lassana Coulibaly surely finally taken out and Scott Arfield to return. We also hope for a role for the impressive Ross McCrorie and/or Jordan Rossiter. As for Ovie Ejaria, he’s becoming rather divisive and Arfield may well shift forward into his slot if sense was to prevail. All of these scenarios bear in mind the near-certainty of Ryan Jack keeping his place but Gerrard has shocked us before and he’ll do so again.

It is, however, the return of the reportedly £5M rated Kent and £2M signing Barisic Rangers chronically need – defending and attacking on the left has been borderline abysmal in the past month or so, so such quality returning over there is welcome.

We’d be genuinely puzzled if these two are not in the XI.