Rangers’ injury list is easily the worst at Ibrox for a decade. 11-13 players are currently unavailable, depending on how you look at it, and Ibrox Noise wonders, like you, why this is happening.
In a bite-size chunk, it began in early 2022 with Ianis Hagi’s ACL in January – it ruled him instantly out till 2023 even if many fans (and his dad) tried to pretend otherwise. We will see him next year. Then it was Kemar Roofe – out for what ended up being 6 months with a ‘mysterious’ injury set – not too clear on what it was but it kept him out till two weeks ago, and he’s now out again…
Then it was Alfredo Morelos – also out for around 6+ months. Just returned in the past month and a half but still looks away off fitness and has lost his place to Antonio Colak.
But then it was reasonably quiet, before the summer blight began: Helander got ruled out long term, before John Souttar effectively joined him, along with Alex Lowry who has been on off with injuries this whole calendar year.
Nnamdi Ofoborh has been an ongoing injury case since he arrived and his career is probably over, but he still classes as being among the list, before Ben Davies also picked up a knock in pre-season and has been battling that since joining Rangers.
Then the dropping like flies started:
Ryan Jack got ruled out for the year after yet another injury, Tom Lawrence was already out after picking up a niggle as well, and we all know about Connor Goldson being gone till 2023 as well, not to mention Glen Kamara picking ‘something’ up.
We can probably add Ridvan Yilmaz to this, and Davies himself picked up something again v Aberdeen and who knows how long he’s out for. And the uncertainty over John Lundstram and James Tavernier’s fitness remains too…
The madness of Rangers’ injury list is crazy. Right now there are 12 players unavailable or barely so:
Helander, Goldson, Souttar, Yilmaz, Davies, Jack, Kamara, Lawrence, Ofoborh, Hagi, Roofe, Lowry.
We’ve just never known over a full first team unavailable through injury.
Sickening.
It puts the topic of Gio’s position into greater perspective at the moment. We don’t have the depth in quality to cope with injuries to more than a few key players. What’s happening now is crazy but you can’t help but feel that much of it is our own doing.
We are signing players who have a history of injuries or have been plagued with injuries since they have arrived and for some reason nobody behind the scenes from our many coaches can pinpoint what we are doing wrong on the training field to prevent the injuries from piling up. It can’t just be coincidence or bad luck.
Gio is having his hand forced into making frequent changes with his selections and it is easy for us to sit and judge the poor decisions (face it, he is guilty of some questionable ones) but we know he has never had the full backing of the board to strengthen on the back of last season.
The lack of support from this board will ultimately cost Gio his job and we will unfairly remember him for the wrong reasons. He doesn’t have experienced replacements, most of our obvious B team players are out on loan and we were too tight to raid the out of contract player market when it hit the fan. If he (given the chance) can pull off a minor miracle in keeping pace in the title race and actually winning the SPL it would be a major success story but at the moment that’s a pretty tough ask.
Whatever happens at the end of this season and no matter who is in charge there are a number of players who we need to let go even if it means they walk away on a free.
This is one reason we need to reassess after the World Cip
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