Derek McInnes has provided an update on the Rangers squad ahead of the return to Scottish Premiership business against Kilmarnock on Saturday.
A three-week hiatus will conclude when the teams take to the pitch at the weekend.
It’s a welcome, but rare, Saturday 3pm for the supporters to enjoy, but that will only happen if the team hold up their end of the bargain.
Rangers can go top of the league, at least temporarily, with a win over Kilmarnock as Celtic don’t play Motherwell until Sunday.
At Thursday’s press conference, when he detailed this week’s visit from Sir Alex Ferguson, Derek McInnes gave an up-to-date assessment of squad availability.
The good news is that none of the international players have come back with any meaningful problems. A few have faced long journeys which will be taken into consideration, with the full squad set for training on Friday.
The group came together again on Thursday, but all activity was conducted indoors.
McInnes provides Rangers squad injury update
Unfortunately, some players have been nursing minor injuries over the last few weeks, as detailed by the manager.
On the returning players, McInnes said:
“Everybody’s fine. The ones that have been away, thankfully. There’s always that element of risk and concern. It was varying degrees of success and disappointment for some of them.
“Whether it was getting game time. Some of them have travelled from quite a distance. Some of them have travelled a bit closer to home. Everybody’s in a different type of boat, but we all get here in one piece, thankfully, and we’ll be ready to go on Saturday.”
Then came the update on the after-effects of the win at Parkhead.
“Yes, so Dujon had a little hamstring strain, but he’s been fine. He’s been training, but he’s one who’s benefited from the break.
“If the break had been just a normal two weeks, he’d probably still have made it last weekend. But the extra time has helped.
“Dujon’s trained and is available. Dan’s fine out of the game as well. Cammy, unfortunately, picked up a little hamstring strain.
“I think it was two or three minutes on the pitch against Celtic. He gave me the shout, which was no use to me because we had no subs left and we had to see the game out. But thankfully, we managed to manage the game with Cammy.
“He’s since been scanned and assessed, and unfortunately he’s got a hamstring issue that we thought might have required surgery, but it doesn’t.
“He got a decent consultation yesterday, but he’s still going to be out a number of weeks. At least for the next six weeks, I think, and then we’ll see where we are from there.”
Ready to go for Kilmarnock
The team goes into the Killie test in good shape.
Confidence and morale is high, but it’s time to go again after the long international break.
The Rangers players need to get back into the groove, playing with each other and meeting the demands at Ibrox.
Three points on Saturday is must.
The victory is there for the taking, but the team must earn the right.
