Badly-needed boost for Rangers as Hearts loom

Rangers have a colossal and badly-needed boost for Sunday after it emerged the squad will be almost fully fit with just Filip Helander continuing to be unavailable, and obviously, Ianis Hagi and Nnamdi Ofoborh.

After a difficult Old Firm Giovanni van Bronckhorst badly needs to get his beleaguered side back on track, and we expect some changes in the lineup to facilitate that, but the manager will have pretty much an entire fully fit squad to pick from.

Long term injuries Kemar Roofe, Ryan Jack and Leon Balogun are of course completely fit again, and Steven Davis who’s missed some recent fixtures is expected to be available too.

Which means just Helander, Hagi and Ofoborh will be offline for this one, with Hagi ruled out for the season and Helander expected to return the tail end of this month while Ofoborh’s status remains unclear.

Leaving a real rich depth for GVB to choose from this weekend.

McGregor, McLaughlin, McCrorie, Tavernier, Zukowski, Goldson, Balogun, Bassey, Simpson, Barisic, King, Kamara, Lundstram, Jack, Davis, Sands, Arfield, Ramsey, Aribo, Kent, Wright, Diallo, Sakala, Roofe, Morelos and Itten will all be at the manager’s disposal, and we certainly expect a bit of changing up for the visit of the Gorgie side.

While there are three men out, the only one who can add more, in our humble opinion, than we have, is Helander, and thankfully Balogun is back giving us a proper spine in central defence.

So we await the weekend’s fixture with anticipation – we expect GVB to make changes, and to have learned from the recent mistakes, and for the players to show the guts and will to win that they’ve lacked lately.

Rangers need to bounce back, and convincingly.