Alfredo Morelos dropped, Ridvan Yilmaz starts – Confirmed Rangers starting XI vs Aberdeen
Giovanni van Bronckhorst’s Rangers starting XI for the must-win Scottish Premiership game against Aberdeen has been confirmed by the club.
He has made two changes from the side that was beaten 3-0 in Naples in midweek, with Alfredo Morelos dropped in favour of Antonio Colak, having failed to match either his own previous output for the club or the Croatian international’s.
Scott Wright also loses his place for Fashion Sakala, while Ridvan Yilmaz makes consecutive starts following his £5million arrival from Besiktas.
Allan McGregor continues in goal, behind an unchanged back four of captain James Tavernier, Yilmaz on the left and Ben Davies and Leon King in the centre.
John Lundstram and James Sands will patrol the middle of the park, with Ryan Kent and Malik Tillman keeping their places to be joined by Sakala and Colak in attack.
Pressure
Coming off another heavy, although not as heavy as feared, defeat in the Champions League the Gers really need to find a way to instil some confidence on their SPFL return.
The gap at the top of the table opened to four points last weekend (22 October), after a thoroughly underwhelming draw with Livingston.
But with the Light Blues playing a day before Celtic this weekend a win would help put some pressure back on the Glasgow rivals.
Anything less than a victory is going to increase the pressure on van Bronckhorst to even greater levels, with the league title potentially slipping out of reach before Christmas, and the return to the top European competition already in tatters.
In an ideal world a win here might help contribute to a slip up from the Hoops on Sunday, while a big win over Ajax on Tuesday (1 November) would propel the club back into the Europe League against the odds.
Unfortunately, recent form doesn’t suggest that either of those things is going to be brought about easily, and the manager is going to need to get something very different out of this line up to change the mood around Ibrox.
In other Rangers news, Chris Sutton was accusing anyone and everyone, obviously including the Bears, as he leapt to the defence of Celtic despite their elimination from the Champions League.