Rangers boss, Michael Beale admits internally he was worried about the club’s centre-back injury crisis.
Speaking to Sky Sports, following their clash with Hibernian, the Rangers manager stated ‘there was a lot going on’ in his head when having to select his defenders for the starting eleven.
The Scottish Premiership clash finished 3-2 to the Gers, thanks to goals from Fashion Sakala, Ryan Jack and Alfredo Morelos.
Connor Goldson, Antonio Colak and Ben Davies are currently out with injuries and Leon King suffered an illness in the morning according to Beale. It led to midfielder, John Lundstrum having to operate as a centre-back.
Beale said (2:09), “Connor’s [Goldson] trained for two days and seven weeks, Ben’s (Davies) trained to three days. I’ve got to be careful here. We have a lot of big matches coming up. I felt after the performance at the weekend, I could get through it. Unfortunately Leon King went sick this morning. So that changed our plans and John [Lundstram] had to drop back there and we lost Colak yesterday afternoon to a tight calf and we didn’t want to take a risk so the last 24 hours have been far from ideal, after two weeks very calm. I stood in front of you before the game quite calm but in my head, there was a lot going on.”
TIF’s view on Beale’s comments…
We believe that the Rangers’ result yesterday was a strong display considering their injuries to their defensive line. To turn the game on its head after being 2-1 down shows an incredible amount of character.
Losing Goldson was a massive blow for the Scottish side, he was a key figure at the back last season. The 29-year-old made 36 league appearances last season and kept a whopping 16 clean sheets.
In addition, the injury to Colak was another big loss for Rangers. He joined in the summer from PAOK, and since his arrival, he’s been one of the club’s best-performing players. The Croatian has an average league rating of 7.35 on Sofascore, the third-best score of any Gers player in the Scottish Premiership.
Rangers will hope they can get their defensive options back healthy as soon as possible. They have a hard task ahead of them in the league, but they’ve managed to close the gap behind Celtic to six points with the Hoops having a game in hand.