Balogun and Cortes to miss out on Rangers’ Euro squad

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Balogun and Cortes to miss out on Rangers’ Euro squad
Rangers' Nigerian defender Leon Balogun celebrates after scoring the opening goal of the UEFA Europa League group A football match between Rangers and Brondby at the Ibrox Stadium in Glasgow on October 21, 2021. (Photo by ANDY BUCHANAN / AFP) (Photo by ANDY BUCHANAN/AFP via Getty Images)

Forgive our recent piece, compiled yesterday before last night’s partial squad confirmation by Rangers manager Philippe Clement and published in error this afternoon, which contained speculation about the issues surrounding the European squad and who the manager would pick.

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We now know the general makeup of the squad – not the full exact announcement, because that’s not been made yet, but we do know the core ins and outs of the Europa League squad, and Clement is ‘hurt’ by having to make such limited changes.

To summarise, remaining out of it is Kieran Dowell (no loss), missing out is new addition Oscar Cortes (puzzling one) and still not in and missing out on the whole season’s Euro campaign is Leon Balogun.

New signing Mohamed Diomande is in for Jose Cifuentes, Fabio Silva comes in for Sam Lammers, while Ridvan is added in for an unnamed player.

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There was no word about removing Kemar Roofe, Danilo or Sima, so the only two players chosen by Beale to definitively depart this list are Lammers and Cifuentes.

Of course, the problem is the limit – Clement is bang on that making just three changes at this point is a truly flabbergasting rule. A LOT can happen in a season with injury and squad turnover that only allowing a three-player change for the second half of the European campaign is literally appalling.

It means a tonne of worthy players miss out and unworthy players remain in.

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And making just three changes mean completely logical switches can’t be made – so Silva comes in and there’s no place for Cortes, Diomande comes in but we can’t have Balogun. And we can’t dump all of Sima, Danilo or Roofe because we’ve run out of changes, meaning three completely wasted selections. Only one of them will come out for Ridvan to go in. Unless it’s Davies who comes out.

While we can blame Beale for a lot of the shambles in the first place, the only two really bad selections he made were omitting Balogun and Ridvan.

The real issue is only being able to make 3 changes.

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What utter idiot thought that was a fair idea?

All clubs are in the same boat, true, but just because the boat is sinking doesn’t make anyone feel much better about sharing space with others.

So it is what it is.

Rangers’ Euro squad for the last 16 could be better. And doesn’t Clement know it.

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