Rabbi Matondo injury blow could lead to Michael Beale end-game at Rangers
Rangers forward Rabbi Matondo has been ruled out for the next six weeks with a knee injury sustained in the weekend win over Motherwell.
Not so long ago, that news would have been greeted by a gentle shrug of the shoulders among the Gers’ fanbase.
After all, Matondo was a player who made a very limited impact in his maiden campaign at Ibrox and was not expected to feature heavily this term.
But the 23-year-old has been one of Michael Beale’s best performers this campaign, having scored twice and assisted a couple more in 10 games – only half of which have been starts.
Matondo started the 1-0 victories over Real Betis and then Motherwell after finally finding his feet in Glasgow.
However, that momentum has now been killed off with the news delivered on Tuesday [26 September] that he is out until early December time.
It is a huge blow for the player first and foremost, having worked so hard to turn around his Rangers career over the past couple of months.
From a team perspective, it leaves Rangers without one of their liveliest attacking players.
After all, no Rangers player has averaged more successful dribbles per game in the league (two), while nobody has assisted more than his two goals [WhoScored].
With Tom Lawrence, Todd Cantwell, Nicolas Raskin, Kieran Dowell and Danilo also sidelined, Beale is entering a crucial period rather light.
With many potentially expecting the next damaging defeat to spell the end of Beale’s tenure, the Matondo news might just be an injury lay-off too much to cope with.
Other Rangers players will no doubt be ready to step up, but there is another void to be filled and increasingly fewer players ready to fill in.
Matondo will hope to hit the ground running when he is eventually back, but whether Beale will still be at the helm at that point remains to be seen.
In other Rangers news, Chris Sutton believes Gers skipper James Tavernier fears coming up against one opponent in particular.