Nico Raskin is set to be out till next year after Rangers manager Philippe Clement confirmed his injury is worse than expected, and the rehab has suffered a setback.

The Belgian midfielder, who probably wasn’t in the best form before his issues flared up, has been out for many weeks now, and after the boss confidently claimed he’d be back by the end of the international break, it’s materialised that that projection was optimistic.

It means he is almost certain to miss this month’s League Cup final with Aberdeen, and very likely to be unavailable for Celtic at the end of the month as well, which the boss considers a major blow that he’s very disquieted about.

He said:

“Nico will have a new assessment next week because his rehab is not going well so I am not so happy about that but it is what it is. We have to find solutions.”

This means Rangers’ midfield options will be John Lundstram, Jose Cifuentes and the newly-adapted Tom Lawrence for the foreseeable future, which is definitely a lack of proper depth, the manager also admitting the Ecuador star isn’t at the races yet either.

He found himself benched with Lawrence doing a solid job filling in, and may find he’s lost his place for some time.

Ryan Jack remains in cold storage – Clement could only hope Jack ‘won’t be so long’ but he could offer no guarantee on that or exact timescale, and with his past injury history we’d make no predictions there either.

But it’s the blow for Raskin that is the biggest issue, and Rangers’ tenacious midfielder is likely to be absent for a fair while yet.

The transfer market can’t come quick enough.