Rangers aren’t without injury problems at the moment, and a worrying update has emerged to counter the good news that Ridvan Yilmaz and Danilo are nearing their returns to action.
Rangers injury updates
The Gers’ start to the season has been an adequate one, rather than overly impressive, with Philippe Clement finding himself under pressure after some bad moments. His side were dumped out of the Champions League qualifying rounds by Dynamo Kiev, while in the Europa League, they were thrashed 4-1 at home to Lyon last week.
Meanwhile, Rangers are five points behind Celtic in the Scottish Premiership heading into the October international break, sitting third in the table and the same number of points adrift of Aberdeen. For now, the Belgian appears to be safe in his job, but it may not take many more bad results for a big decision to be made by the Ibrox board.
Clement could do with having more key players fit to help his current plight, with Danilo an influential attacking player who is yet to start a single league game this season, appearing just once in the competition. Rabbi Matondo and Ridvan Yilmaz are two other important individuals who Rangers are currently having to make do without, as well as Oscar Cortes, who is in his second season on loan at Ibrox from Lens.
And while Yilmaz and Danilo are expected to return to training in some form over the next two weeks, the news is not so good on Cortes.
"Long term" Rangers injury blow emerges
Writing on X on Sunday evening, Four Lads Had A Dream confirmed that they had spoken to Clement after the 2-0 win over St Johnstone, who said that Cortes is a “long term” injury concern for Rangers, and was unable to specify a real timeframe.
This is such a disappointing update, with Cortes’ Rangers career failing to ignite yet, having been described as a “very promising” player by The Rangers Journal upon his first arrival at the club at the beginning of the year. Last season, the 20-year-old only made six appearances in the Scottish Premiership, of which just three were starts, with injuries stunting his progress and keeping him out of the team for large periods.
Sadly, it has been similar this time around, too, with only 95 minutes coming his way in the league and his last appearance in the competition coming away to Dundee United in the middle of September.
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The training ground injury that was expected to keep Cortes out for “weeks” looks as though it is threatening to be more serious, but Clement will be desperate to have a key attacking option back in his plans as soon as possible. It is a cruel piece of luck for the player, who must be so keen to prove himself in a Rangers shirt, potentially leading to a permanent transfer further down the line.