A lot of Rangers fans are asking the same thing a few matches into the season; where on earth is Danilo Pereira da Silva, or Danilo as we know him.
Obviously, he’s not ‘nowhere’, he’s been on the bench for every match so far, but curiously the manager has not brought him on for a single minute at all this campaign in any competition.
Indeed, even more bizarrely, the late sub of late has randomly been the rather pointless Kieran Dowell who has added absolutely nothing to Rangers since arriving last summer – we don’t know why he’s getting persistent minutes and the club’s most expensive current signing isn’t.
Manager Philippe Clement claimed things would have to go slowly with Danilo, and that he wasn’t ready just yet – that’s fair enough, he is off the back of a long injury, but equally we’re not sure what use it is not giving him a few minutes here and there.
We spent £6.3M on him, he’s our second most expensive post-Advocaat signing aside Ryan Kent, and we’re shipping £40,000 wages on the boy.
And absolutely not using him? Not even building up the minutes?
So the question becomes why, and let’s not forget this lad is theoretically a Clement favourite – he confirmed he tried to sign him from Ajax in his own Brugge days, so this is a player he likes and wanted before.
This adds up to further intrigue.
So why is Danilo not playing?
Well there are three major ‘theories’
1: Rangers only play with one man up top. Cyriel Dessers is the main striker these days, is always fit, and while some fans have misgivings about him he’s continuing to do the business.
2: Danilo CANNOT play the lone striker role. Unfortunately the Brazilian hitman is not suited to being a target man, even if he did play that role with Feyenoord – there the football in Holland was less physical and he wasn’t relying on aerial distribution. He’s much more of a 9 than an 11.
3: Maybe Clement has finally learned from his rotten errors with Oscar Cortes that playing a returning player who had massive injury issues that intensely is unwise. Maybe he is slowly easing Danilo back into the matchday vibe before then giving him minutes.
Beyond these, your guess is as good as ours. We have one of the most expensive players in the club’s history sitting on the bench. When we will get to see him again we couldn’t possibly tell you.