Ibrox Noise would like to place our support and sympathies on record to John Souttar, who it has now been 100% confirmed did indeed suffer a family bereavement.

We received this information second-hand and couldn’t be absolutely sure it was accurate, so didn’t want to potentially apply this to him if it wasn’t true, and remained on the fence about joining in with the sympathy.

But the Rangers player himself did confirm via his Facebook that he lost a family member recently, the funeral being recent.

Gio could only say he had a problem, and he was being assessed – we took this as a hint that any other reason attributed to Souttar for his absence wasn’t true.

His loss may have played a part in his difficult start to life at Rangers, but unfortunately it has been compounded by confirmed injury as well and we have no idea how long he will be out for.

Ibrox Noise will always hold our hands up to honest mistakes.

Unlike some others, we have not given Souttar excess criticism for his performances, only that he needs to step up his level a bit to handle the Rangers shirt.

Others have concluded already that he is a duff signing.

There is certainly room for improvement, but how much of it was down to his bereavement?

In reality, he probably should not have been selected for Rangers, but likely did what he felt his late relative would have wanted. Hard to focus in those circumstances though.

Nevertheless, Souttar has our support, and we hope yours too, but equally we cannot be sure now when he will actually be fit again.

But we wish him the best at this difficult time.