Michael Beale’s diabolical European selection has come back to haunt Rangers again after Connor Goldson’s yellow card rules the defender out of Aris Limassol in 3 weeks and unless Rangers are blessed by some good fortune and John Souttar’s timely return to fitness by then, there will be no one else to call upon at all.

Leon Balogun of course is ineligible for this competition thanks to the former idiot in charge, with just Leon King in reserve, who has had his injury issues in recent weeks, to fall back on, and we all saw how a Ben Davies and Leon King defence did last season…

Unfortunately, it’s not just Beale’s horrific European squad selection for this competition that was diabolical, and it’s not even the injuries at the back which are causing further mayhem… it’s the abysmal summer window which saw just two defenders signed, and only one of them a CB who was ridiculously omitted from the Euro squad.

Thanks to Beale’s appalling decision-making, Rangers are absolutely threadbare at the rear, and suspensions and injuries are making what is already feeble even worse.

This competition should have had 4 centre backs picked, and four fullbacks. As it was, 3 defenders and 3 FBs were chosen, which has left the team painfully short as we go into the traditionally-busy and tricky winter period.

Meaning Philippe Clement is going to have to work some miracles to be able to deploy a working defence when the Cypriots come to Govan, albeit he does thankfully have 3 weeks including the international break to get Souttar fit, so it’s not impossible.

But Goldson’s yellow hasn’t made things easy, regardless of the justice or otherwise of it, and we’ll just have to work with what we have.