Rangers’ January preparations took a little hit yesterday after confirmation of the strong chance Fashion Sakala will not be available for selection after Zambia got a potential reprieve at the AFCON.

The striker, who’s been in impressive form in recent months, has become an extremely popular member of the squad and a valuable morale booster thanks to his infectious personality, and had been expected to be available this month for Rangers.

Zambia, who failed to quality for AFCON behind Zimbabwe, have a bunch of players internationally, with Sakala being a major name, and naturally failing to get to AFCON those players were to play for their clubs this month.

But Zimbabwe now face expulsion due to political unrest in the nation and this could see a hail mary for Zambia and, obviously, Salaka.

Which would lose Rangers his services this month.

The break ends on the 17th, assuming no further setbacks, but AFCON starts in only a few days, so Sakala may be jetting off any moment now, his nation is just waiting on the word.

Selfishly of course we want this not to happen, we’ve already lost Joe Aribo, but as decent people naturally we want to see our players represent their countries at big tournaments even at selection cost of Rangers.

But we’ll find out in the next while if it comes to pass.