Steven Gerrard has effectively confirmed stars Jermain Defoe and Filip Helander are, give or take, out for the season.

As we suggested earlier, Gerrard’s confession that Helander is likely to be around a further 6 weeks at least takes him deep into April, and getting full match fitness back after that would take another two or three.

In short, the Swede will not return much before the split, and like Jamie Murphy last season, he’s set to be a bit-part player by then.

Meanwhile the news on Defoe isn’t the best either – the manager admitted the veteran striker will be unlikely to return before March’s international break, meaning he too probably won’t be back much before the split either.

This, indirectly, more or less, rules both of them out for the season, unless something drastically changes in either case, meaning there will be bigger pressure on the three remaining central defenders and of course both remaining strikers.

Hopefully this turns out to be premature, but unfortunately, with the age of Defoe, and the nature of Helander’s injury, it does seem Rangers are down two men for the bulk of the rest of the campaign.

Not ideal.