Tom Lawrence suffers injury setback in Rangers blow – Michael Beale
Michael Beale has confirmed that Tom Lawrence has suffered a setback upon his return from injury and will be missing for Rangers for a while longer.
The former Wales international signed for the club on a free transfer in the summer and started well before going down with a knee injury at the back end of August.
After Beale shared that he was hopeful Lawrence could return towards the end of this month, the boss has now shared that he will be out for longer after suffering a setback in training.
“He had a slight setback and he went away to get an opinion,” Beale shared in his pre-match press conference (17 January).
“The opinion is ‘okay let’s see how things are going’.
“Some things he can do at this stage that someone that had that injury problem probably shouldn’t be able to do. And he’s had a bit of discomfort at times in areas that he shouldn’t.
“It’s slowly does it at the moment and there’s not really much more to say than that. He is still not back with the group and we are just going to assess as we go how he feels and whether he can then start working with the group which will see a quick return or it doesn’t go to plan and we have to look at an alternative.”
Blow
Lawrence was becoming a key player in the Gers team before his injury and his presence in the final third was greatly missed before Giovanni van Bronckhorst was sacked.
Beale has come in and found a formula that works by using pace out wide and Ryan Kent through the middle behind a striker, but Lawrence’s return could potentially have seen him come back into contention as the number ten.
With Ianis Hagi set to return soon too, the attacking options are getting much stronger and Lawrence’s absence isn’t weighing quite as heavily as it once did.
But as Rangers look to charge down a nine-point deficit behind Celtic and with a cup final against the old enemy next month too, the boss will want to be as strong as possible.
Hopefully the issue for Lawrence isn’t too bad and doesn’t set him back too far, but we won’t be seeing him at Ibrox any time soon.
In other Rangers news, two youngsters to start ahead of Beale favourites in our predicted XI to face Kilmarnock