Philippe Clement shares Jose Cifuentes and Borna Barisic injury updates as four ruled out vs Hearts
Rangers will be missing at least four first team players when they return to domestic action against Hearts, with further doubts on Borna Barisic, Philippe Clement has revealed.
The Gers boss shared in his pre-match press conference, via the official club Twitter, on 27 October that all of Kemar Roofe, Tom Lawrence and Dujon Sterling are out, with Heart & Hand also reporting that Rabbi Matondo remains unavailable as well.
Borna Barisic, who missed the Europa League draw at Sparta Prague after limping off against Hibs last weekend, also remains a doubt ahead of the Sunday 29 October visit of the Jambos, but Jose Cifuentes is set to return to training.
The summer signing missed the 4-0 win in Clement’s first game in charge last weekend with a knock, while striker Danilo, who has returned to action wearing a mask as he recovers from his facial fracture, may still not be ready to start.
Men down
It seems to be the unwanted gift that keeps on giving at Ibrox for the manager, whoever it may be, to never have a full quota of players available.
The mounting injury crisis during the dying days of Michael Beale’s doomed reign appears to be slowly improving, but the problems at left-back have still sprung up since Clement’s arrival.
The dynamism in attack has suffered without the services of Matondo, Lawrence and Danilo, with Abdallah Sima left to provide most of the spark on his own at times.
But the draw in Europe against Sparta Prague on Thursday proved to be a solid result after a pretty dismal first half, and coupled with the thrashing of Hibs marks a decent start for Clement.
He will want to capitalise on the win over one side of Edinburgh last week with more of the same against the other this weekend to maintain as much positivity as possible.
And with Ridvan Yilmaz available again in the SPFL after Beale’s decision to leave him out of the European squad the left-back issue is less of a concern if Barisic is unable to return.
In other Rangers news, one of the injured men is already slipping into obscurity at Ibrox as questions are raised about his position.