Rangers have been hit with yet another double injury blow after Rabbi Matondo confirmed he’s out, and Michael Beale could only say he’s trying to get Antonio Colak fit.

The injury blight covering Rangers this season is absolutely ridiculous and unprecedented in the history of the club, and following Kemar Roofe being lost for another month, Matondo has confirmed he’s out for an unforeseen period, while Beale hinted that Colak has been struggling with injuries and he isn’t exactly overly available.

It comes after the manager also suggested Alfredo Morelos himself has also been injured in recent weeks, but been playing through it, meaning that as of now, Rangers’ injury backlog looks like this:

Robby McCrorie, John Souttar, Filip Helander, Ridvan Yilmaz, Steven Davis, Ianis Hagi, Tom Lawrence, Kemar Roofe, Rabbi Matondo and Antonio Colak.

Literally almost an entire XI is currently unavailable or badly unfit, with a host of those players being ones the manager would definitely use as part of the matchday squad, and likely a few first-team players in there too.

It just adds up to an absolutely preposterous state of affairs, and while Michael Beale’s recent theory about why it’s the case has some merit, it doesn’t change the simple fact we’re missing a third of our senior squad through injury.

We’ve managed to get Ben Davies and Connor Goldson fit again, but they are about the only injury cases to have actually recovered this season. The rest all remain out, unless you count Roofe’s brief return.

Rangers’ injury shows no sign of letting up, and it’s imperative we sign some new players who can preferably stay fit, because there’s no point relying on injury returns given half of them will pick up a splinter on their way back and end up out another 6 months.

As for Colak, he has been injured in recent times, and is trying to get fitness back, but he’s not ready yet it seems and that’s why he was only on the bench in case of emergency, with, as Beale suggested, his being ready for a penalty or five minutes, but no more.

Matondo is no miss, let’s be blunt, even despite the fair well-wishes he got when announcing his bad news. He’s been a fail and we’ll not be dishonest or sycophantic about that.

But we do hope he’s fit soon and proves us wrong!