Derek McInnes has three new injury troubles, and they are his first as Rangers manager. Preseason is not over yet, and sadly, he may have lost a few men ahead of the new campaign.
Thelo Aasgaard suffers shoulder injury
It is not the best news, to say the least. Of course, all 3 players now have five days to recover fully.
However, nobody wants to enter the new season already injured. Sadly, that appears to be the case with Thelo Aasgaard, Cammy Devlin and Ross McCrorie.
Thelo Aasgaard suffered some kind of shoulder knock after a bad challenge. He had to go straight off and immediately entered the dressing room.
That is never a good sign because he required instant medical attention. We hope it is nothing more than a mildly dislocated shoulder or less.
Hopefully, he can recover within a short space of time. Otherwise, Rangers have already lost him for the start of the new campaign.
Ross McCrorie misses West Ham match
Secondly, there is the aforementioned McCrorie. He had to sit out the West Ham match entirely after suffering a knee issue. From what we gather, it was quite a bad one.
Leaving him out was precautionary more than anything else. However, any knee issue causes concern.
Consequently, Rangers are now 3 men down and will very likely have neither available for Tannadice. We hope the McCrorie situation is not as serious as it could be. Of course, the same applies to Aasgaard and Devlin.
However, it is a bad time of the year to have these concerns. You want your full squad completely fit going into the new campaign. Already, it seems Rangers will not have that.
Cammy Devlin Calf
McInnes explained that Cammy Devlin as well as Thelo suffered a calf knock against West Ham, and while the manager is optimistic to have both of the new injuries and Ross McCrorie fit, there’s no guarantee.
Sterling could start at right back
Unless Rangers announce a new right back before Tannadice, Dujon Sterling will certainly start there for that particular visit.
That means Tuur Rommens, Emmanuel Fernandez and Ben Godfrey will join him in the rearguard. That seems to be Rangers’ back line going forward until the club makes further enhancements.
We will publish a separate piece on Dujon Sterling himself. For now, however, he appears to be the right back.
His teammate and competition for the jersey, McCrorie, is not necessarily going to be fit.
Rangers await fitness updates
We cannot know for sure. As we mentioned, Rangers left him out of the matchday squad as a precaution.
Hopefully, he will be fit to play some part at Tannadice. However, for now, we will assume that he will not.
You would have to say the same applies to Aasgaard and Devlin – we always err on the side of caution on Ibrox Noise.