Rangers manager Philippe Clement has confirmed Turkish left back Ridvan Yilmaz will miss Saturday’s visit of Hibernian, and is a major doubt to face Celtic next weekend as well.

Coming off early in the international break against Hungary, Ridvan had to be sent home amid claims of a hamstring pull, and his camp put out an optimistic suggesting he could be available for Celtic.

But Clement was not half as convinced:

“It’s not going to be long long term, we’re going to see next week. There’s a possibility he can be fit for next week but it’s still a doubt so we will see next week to make more evaluation about that.”

This is very much sitting on the fence – Ridvan will be assessed over the coming 7 days, monitored heavily, and Philippe Clement will be praying he regains enough fitness over the next five days that he can be considered in contention.

Because right now it’s very much in the hands of the gods as to whether the former Besiktas man can be fit enough to feature in the Old Firm.

What do we think?

We’d be very, very surprised if he’s available – his representatives obviously want to be positive and suggest he will be fit by the time of the big one, but Clement cut a less optimistic figure.

The best the boss could do was offer the truth, and his take on that, and the fact he could only say it wasn’t going to be a bad one and wouldn’t be a long long absence is mildly encouraging, but that only means we’ve not lost him for something like 3 months.

In terms of Celtic, we really do think that one will come too early, as much as it pains us to say it.

But maybe the player can prove us wrong, which we’d absolutely love, because we sure need him in that match.