Philippe Clement has confirmed a new injury blow with Dujon Sterling, who missed the last portion of preseason, unavailable for Saturday but hopeful to be ready for midweek.
Which we doubt.
The utility player, whose position we’ve rather given up on defining, had slotted in (poorly) at RB in preseason, being exposed and exploited by Murray and Sancho of Man Utd for one, but then disappeared from the squad completely soon after.
Clement has confirmed he’s injured, and if he’s missed the last few weeks of preseason and will miss Saturday, we do wonder what miracle would suddenly have him fit for midweek.
This means going into the new season Rangers are definitely without Sterling, potentially new man Propper due to paperwork, and further new signing Hamza Igamane who could be a while unavailable.
This means a squad, it appears, of:
Jack Butland, Liam Kelly, James Tavernier, Leon Balogun, John Souttar, Ben Davies, Ridvan Yilmaz, Jefte, Mohamed Diomande, Connor Barron, Kieran Dowell, Tom Lawrence, Alex Lowry, Vaclav Cerny, Oscar Cortes, Scott Wright, Ross McCausland, Rabbi Matondo, Cyriel Dessers, Danilo.
There’s the Devines and Kings as well, not to mention Curtis and MacKinnon, but the above is the core available squad to face Hearts it seems. We have for now excluded Propper unless that paperwork arrives in time. He is completely fit and ready to go if it does.
We wouldn’t even bother to guess the XI here, but we’re pretty sure Tav, Davies, Wright and Dessers will be in there.
Some things never change.